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DURHAM (WTVD) -- An overtime scandal at the Durham Police Department will cost a high-ranking officer her job. Sources told Eyewitness News Deputy Chief B.J. Council is leaving the department. Eyewitness News has learned Council was placed on administrative duty Tuesday and will be out of her job by Friday. Her departure stems from an internal probe of a Durham police officer's overtime pay. That officer earned more than $62,000 in overtime, exceeding the officer's actual salary. Sources said the officer's overtime was approved by the police department's second-in-command, who is Council. A news conference is planned for Wednesday.

Not content with the mess they created when the university threw innocent lacrosse team players to the wolves following a manifestly false accusation of group rape, Duke university has now instituted a policy for handling rape charges manifestly unfair to the accused. KC Johnson whose work in defense of the lacrosse team was outstanding, has exposed this outrage as well oin his site, Durham in Wonderland. Three Duke University students were the victims of the highest-profile fraudulent rape claim in modern American history. That fact alone should make the University particularly sensitive to the dangers of false rape allegations, and...

Durham, N.C. — Duke University has fired an employee who faces federal child sex charges. Frank M. Lombard, 42, of 24 Indigo Creek Trail in Durham, was let go from his position as associate director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke, a spokesman said. Duke Vice President for Public Affairs Michael Schoenfeld said Lombard was placed on unpaid leave at the time of his arrest June 24 and was fired Monday. Schoenfeld added that the university was cooperating with the investigation. Lombard faces extradition to Washington, D.C., to face charges that he solicited an adult to have...

History and social analysis of the Duke lacrosse case, retold in part from original documents; compared and contrasted with the social history of the Scottsboro trials.

(AP) — OKLAHOMA CITY - A pharmacist who shot a would-be robber six times was charged with first-degree murder Wednesday, and the prosecutor said only the first shot was justified. A security video shows two men bursting into the pharmacy May 19 and one of them, 16-year-old Antwun Parker, is shot. Pharmacist Jerome Ersland then is seen chasing the second man outside before he walks past Parker to get a second gun, returns to Parker and opens fire. District Attorney David Prater said Ersland was justified in shooting Parker once in the head, but went too far when he shot...

The chancellor and provost at N.C. State have been ordered to appear before a federal grand jury meeting in Raleigh this week, according to federal records released Tuesday afternoon. Chancellor James Oblinger and Provost Larry Nielsen were asked to bring documents related to the hiring, promotion and salary of former first lady Mary Easley. The subpoenas follow reports in The News & Observer about the circumstances surrounding Easley's hiring at N.C. State in 2005 and the expansion of her duties last year, which raised her pay to $170,000. Mary Easley has come under pressure to resign her position from Oblinger...

Back in 2005, a WalMart worker in Pennsylvania reported 59-year-old Donna Dull to local authorities after Dull dropped off some film that included shots of her three-year-old granddaughter in and just out of the bath. Dull was arrested—roughly, she says—and charged with producing and distributing child pornography. The charges were dropped 15 months later when a Pennsylvania special prosecutor overruled the local DA. Only Dull, her attorney, and police and prosecutors have apparently seen the photos, which are now under seal. She's now suing. In this follow-up article from the York Daily Record, state officials seem to be trying to...

  At the Liestoppers forum, Walt-in-Durham has a detailed rundown of Crystal Mangum’s appearance tonight at UNC. As I have noted previously, it is mindboggling that an academic institution would invite someone who the state AG had, with copious evidence, deemed a false accuser and not allow her to be questioned on the myriad contradictions in her story. It is all the more mindboggling that the only reason for this refusal to allow questions was to prevent the false accuser from saying something that could open her to a lawsuit.I should note, in addition, that Mangum’s p.r. representative had similarly...

Folks, I just got the news from Thomas Loflin, III - attorney for Elmostafa. "I am at long last pleased to inform you that Mr. Elmostafa has settled his malicious prosecution action against Hecht's, its security guard, and Hecht's successor corporations, the main one of which is Macy's Inc." "The settlement came just before we were to go to court on cross-motions for summary judgment as to the issue of liability on December 1st, and before court-ordered mediation set for December 15th. We had a trial date of March 30th (2009)." The amount of money settled for can not be...

A federal judge on Thursday rejected the appeal of fallen prosecutor Mike Nifong to keep his case in bankruptcy court. The ruling opens the door for the three exonerated lacrosse players to again pursue malicious prosecution allegations against the former district attorney. In October 2007, Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann filed suit against Nifong, the city of Durham and its police department. The players claimed they suffered personal injury and emotional distress while the prosecutor, police and city pushed ahead with a gang-rape case that was flawed from the start. In their civil suit, the players allege the...

Duke University is suing its insurance company for refusing to pay any of the settlement costs for the Duke lacrosse case. In federal court papers filed Monday, Duke is seeking financial relief from National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh, an affiliate of insurance giant AIG. The case stems from gang-rape allegations that an escort service dancer lodged against three players after a lacrosse team party in June 2006. Before all the facts were gathered and any criminal charges were filed, Duke suspended the lacrosse team's season. The criminal case against the three players crumbled quickly over the next year....

ANTIOCH, CA (KGO) -- The city of Antioch and its police department have been slapped with a federal lawsuit by a San Francisco police detective who got Tasered in her home.One of the officers who raided the San Francisco Police detective's home was wearing a microphone, so it was all recorded.

The woman at the center of the scandal that rocked Duke University, Durham and the lives of the three lacrosse players plans to return to the city next week to promote her new book. Crystal Gail Mangum is scheduled to hold a news conference at the Know Bookstore on Thursday to promote, “The Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story.” Magnum will donate $1 from the purchase of each book to help battered women, according to Vincent Clark, a representative for Fire! Products Inc., a film studio that is representing her. Mangum was a student enrolled at North Carolina...

Biden "Nifongs" innocent man's reputation, then complains about "smears" We received the following unsolicited fundraising letter from the Obama/Biden campaign. Given Biden's own documented conduct--from his Senate Web site and not from any Republicans or PUMAs--he has about as much right as disgraced prosecutor Mike Nifong has to talk about lies and smears. The McCain campaign is on the ropes, and sadly it's no surprise they're responding with attacks and outright lies. I've heard some pretty unspeakable things in the past few days -- deeply offensive smears that we'll hear over and over again until Election Day. John McCain and...

The A&T Register ncatregister.com Wednesday, April 16, 2008 Woman behind Duke lacrosse scandal speaks out Accuser talks to Aggies about being a student again after controversy surrounding trial faded Alexandria Harper Contributor It was called a scandal but made into mockery. The Duke lacrosse case hit radio and television stations by storm in 2007. Reporters from media outlets around the country scrambled to provide day to-day updates on Crystal Gail Mangum, the accuser, and three Duke Lacrosse players; Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans, the accused. Mangum, a former exotic dancer and escort, accused these men of sexual assault...

DURHAM - Karen Daniel pushed up against the low courtroom wall separating her from her 21-year-old son Erick Daniels -- the young man who screamed "Mommy" nearly seven years ago as deputies led him away, convicted of a burglary and robbery he insists he did not commit. The two, who spell their last names differently, spent the day in a Durham County courtroom Thursday as lawyer Carlos Mahoney put witness after witness on the stand, trying to show that Daniels had ineffective counsel at his trial in December 2001 and was wrongfully convicted. Judge Orlando Hudson could decide today whether...

(Regarding) the phony inquiry being staged by Alaska Democrats concerning Governor Palin’s sacking of recalcitrant underling Walt Monegan. For anyone doubting that this whole ”investigation” is a partisan scam cooked up by a bunch of good-old-boy political hacks, here’s a smoking gun from the Obama-Biden campaign web site:

Former Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong wants permission to auction off three of his collector guitars. Court documents filed Wednesday list him as wanting to sell a Fender Deluxe Nashville Telecaster, a Martin D-41 and a PRS Custom 24. According to bankruptcy proceedings in February, two of the instruments are worth about $5,000. If the motion to auction the guitars is approved, the auction will take place Oct. 12 at 1 p.m. at 361 Ja-Max Road in Hillsborough. Nifong filed for bankruptcy in January, listing a debt of $180.3 million. Almost all of that is estimated damages from pending civil...

In a scorching ruling today, the state Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of a man serving more than 60 years in prison on burglary, robbery and sexual assault charges, saying the Durham District Attorney's Office unfairly delayed his trial for nearly five years. The ruling could lead to freedom for Frankie Delano Washington, 47, an auto mechanic who was convicted of multiple charges last year in a 2002 invasion of a family's home in Trinity Park in Durham. Because the opinion was unanimous, the state has no automatic right to take the appeal further. The delay cost Washington...

DURHAM -- After figuring in the Duke lacrosse case and becoming Reader's Digest magazine's Hero of the Year, former Durham cabbie Moezeldin Elmostafa has launched what his lawyer described Tuesday as a priceless and perhaps unprecedented court claim. It involves his U.S. citizenship, which Elmostafa contends was delayed for two years by an old and bogus criminal charge that resurfaced in 2006 while the lacrosse debacle was in full swing. "Citizenship is absolutely priceless," said Elmostafa's lawyer, Tom Loflin of Durham. Still, Loflin wants several defendants to come up with a figure. "If they don't agree to my number, we'll...

DURHAM, N.C., July 1 (UPI) -- A Durham, N.C., Democratic official and her husband face criminal charges in connection with alleged satanic rituals. Joy Johnson, 30, a third vice-chairwoman of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice chairwoman of the Young Democrats, was charged Friday with two counts of aiding and abetting. Her husband, Joseph Scott Craig, 25, was charged with second-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon for incidents in January and May, the Raleigh News & Observer reported Tuesday. Mark McCullough, an assistant district attorney ...acknowledged that "part of the allegations are...

Durham, N.C. — Mike Nifong is appealing an order issued last week by a bankruptcy judge who ruled a civil rights lawsuit by three former Duke University lacrosse players can proceed. Nifong filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, which temporarily protected him from the lawsuit, which claimed he, the city of Durham and others conspired to keep a weak case alive as he faced an election. David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann were cleared in April 2007 of all charges stemming from an exotic dancer's claims she was raped. Nifong listed a debt of more than $180 million –...

DURHAM — Former District Attorney Mike Nifong will not be able to hide from a lawsuit in bankruptcy court, a federal judge ruled today. The three exonerated lacrosse players who filed suit against the fallen prosecutor in October will be able to pursue their claims in federal civil court, Judge William L. Stocks ruled. The ruling came more than a month after lawyers representing the players and Nifong presented their arguments in court. Nifong was stripped of his law license and ousted from office last summer for his misconduct in the Duke lacrosse case. Nifong was supposed to file a...

Collin Finnerty wanted Loyola to win in its NCAA Tournament assignment Saturday afternoon at Duke, where awkward moments could have superseded anything else. The top-seeded Blue Devils defeated Loyola as expected in men's lacrosse, then took aside a former teammate and shared a special moment. Finnerty posed for an impromptu photograph near midfield with his ex-teammates, capping a strange get-together on a splendid, yet windy, Saturday afternoon at nearly full Koskinen Stadium. Duke players say Finnerty remains part of their group even though he wore the opposing uniform during the Blue Devils' 12-7 victory. He was one of the three...

<p>COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and other Democratic leaders are calling on scandal-scarred Attorney General Marc Dann to resign.</p> <p>Dann's response to his fellow Democrats is that he is staying on the job.</p> <p>Strickland, Sen. Sherrod Brown, other Democratic state officeholders and all Democratic state legislators sent Dann a letter Monday saying his actions hurt his ability to do his job.</p>

Thursday, May 01, 2008 LieStoppers is open for Business Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the Blog Hooligans we have now opened the Meeting Place for viewers. A giant thanks is given to our "Tony Soprano." What he has personally accomplished since last Saturday is truly amazing! Viewers can now read the threads without registering. More importantly it means that the efforts of those who tried to prevent them from learning the facts of the Hoax/Frame have failed. The dirty laundry of those in Durham and at Duke who perpetrated this attempted frame of the 2006 Duke Lacrosse Team will...

Published: Apr 28, 2008 12:30 AM Modified: Apr 28, 2008 01:44 AM Sexual assault reported in Durham From Staff Reports Durham Police are investigating a reported sexual assault in the 900 block of Gilbert Street at 7:51 a.m. Sunday. The victim was taken to Durham Regional Hospital for treatment.

CRIME LOG From staff reports : The Herald-Sun news@heraldsun.com Apr 27, 2008 Three charges for rape suspect DURHAM -- Police have charged a Durham man with first-degree rape, assault on a female and second-degree trespassing in connection with an incident that allegedly occurred on April 22. Eric Dwayne Thomas, 35, of 704 E. Maynard Ave., Durham, was held in the Durham County Jail pending a $750,000 secured bond on the rape charge. City police arrested him Friday. A magistrate also ordered that Thomas be held without bond for up to 48 hours in connection with the assault on a female...

Deadline moved for federal lacrosse suit By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun gronberg@heraldsun.com Apr 26, 2008 DURHAM -- Lawyers on both sides of one of the three federal civil-rights lawsuits stemming from the Duke lacrosse case have agreed to move back a deadline for the city government and Duke University to file dismissal motions. Defense motions in the case filed by unindicted lacrosse players Breck Archer, Ryan McFadyen and Matt Wilson had been due Friday. But instead, lawyers for the players, the city, Duke and other defendants agreed to wait until July 2. The delay will give defense lawyers time...

WINSTON-SALEM -- U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty Jr. on Tuesday denied a motion for sanctions filed by Duke University and the City of Durham and ruled that the legal team for 38 members of the 2005-06 Duke lacrosse team had violated ethical rules by using a Web site, news conference and news release to publicize the filing of their case. The players have filed a civil rights lawsuit against Duke and the city, demanding reparations arising from the since dismissed Duke lacrosse sexual offense case. Beaty also ruled, however, that the content published on that Web site -- www.dukelawsuit.com...

Durham, N.C. — Attorneys for three former Duke University lacrosse players filed a motion this week asking a judge to lift a stay that keeps them from suing former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong. Nifong filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in January, listing a debt of $180.3 million and David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann – as well as three other players who filed suit – as unsecured creditors, each owed $30 million. Attorneys for Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann, however, say in the April 8 filing that bankruptcy was a tactic he used to avoid a federal civil rights...

Sports Director Jim Henderson reports that Duke Athletic Director Joe Alleva will be named as the new AD at LSU.

Woman pleads guilty to false rape report By Peyton Whitely Seattle Times Eastside bureau A 22-year-old former Woodinville woman pleaded guiltyTuesday to making a false rape accusation against a local college professor last June. King County District Court Judge Peter Nault called the case one of the "saddest" he'd ever seen in court and one that is likely to have long-term impact on future investigations. "That we hurry to castigate a person who turns out to be entirely innocent ... I don't know how it could be worse," said Nault, saying the incident will make it harder for real sexual...

2 in lacrosse case quit police force Principal investigators in the case have resigned, the Durham police chief says Stanley B. Chambers Jr., Staff Writer DURHAM - Sgt. Mark Gottlieb and Investigator Benjamin Himan, the Durham Police Department's principal investigators in the Duke lacrosse case, have both left the department in the past several weeks, Chief Jose L. Lopez said Tuesday. Gottlieb, who joined the department in 1992, had contemplated leaving for a few months, Lopez said. "I did not ask him to leave," Lopez said. "I wasn't looking for his resignation." Lopez said Himan, a Durham officer since 2002,...

At the end of February 2004, I wrote a letter that would never be received. The intended recipient was Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas prisoner on death row. Months earlier, Willingham had written me a ten-page, hand-printed essay about his life in solitary confinement and his last experience in the open air. In it, he recalled a cluster of "blazing purple flowers," the first he had seen in more than eight years. The flowers were "gifts to the world," he wrote, reminding him of his own gifts, which had been "taken away." This was a reference to Willingham's daughters, and...

Officers from both the Durham Police Department and the Duke University Police Department responded to reports early Monday morning of a possible narcotics violation by a student in Bell Tower Residence Hall, sources confirmed. DUPD Maj. Gloria Graham said a residence coordinator contacted police about the violation, but when officers arrived on site and tested the substance in question they determined that it was aspirin. No arrest was made and officers left the building at about 1:30 a.m., students said. Chris Ellis, the residence coordinator for Bell Tower, Blackwell and Randolph dormitories, did not respond to requests for comment Monday...

Friday, February 29, 2008 Duke files motion to take down this website Duke and other defendants have filed a motion to shut down this website. Click here to read it. Posted by Bob at 2:48 PM

Thirty-eight current and former Duke lacrosse players are filing suit against Duke University, according to an email I just got from the Robert H. Bork Jr. PR firm. The parents of the players will formally announce the suit tomorrow at 1 p.m. at the National Press Club: Charles J. Cooper, attorney for the players will explain the complaint and answer questions from the media. Only credentialed media will be allowed. Media who are unable to be present at the news conference may call (888) 882-0114 to hear audio from the event and ask questions during the Q&A. The complaint and...

Mike Nifong, the former Durham District Attorney who lost his job and law license for misconduct in the Duke lacrosse case, makes too much money to seek bankruptcy protection, a federal court administrator has concluded. Michael D. West, a bankruptcy administrator, filed a statement in the case late last week. Nifong's case, West said in his statement, should be "presumed to be an abuse" because his annual income would be higher than federal limits. The administrator's statement is a recommendation, not a ruling. But if a judge agrees, that could make it more difficult for Nifong to hide in bankruptcy...

When a mentally deluded stripper accused three Duke University lacrosse players of a brutal gang rape at a March 2006 off-campus team party during spring break, dozens of activist Duke professors were not content merely to give great credence to the rape charge, even as evidence of its probable fraudulence poured into the public record. They also treated the lacrosse players as pariahs for having hired strippers at all. So, too, did Duke President Richard Brodhead, Board Chairman Robert Steel, other campus administrators, many in the media, and others. Never mind that hiring strippers violated no law or university rule....

Attorney Simon Glik, 31, was a defendant in Boston Municipal Court today as his lawyer, June E. Jensen of Wayland, asked a judge to dismiss wiretapping, disturbing-the-peace and aiding-a-prisoner-escape complaints, which were issued against him last fall. Jensen told Judge Mark H. Summerville that Glik was arrested in Boston on Oct. 1 for allegedly using his cell phone to record the arrest of a 16-year-old juvenile in a drug case. She said the Moscow-born lawyer was walking through the Boston Common at 5:30 p.m. when he used his phone’s camera to videotape three police officers investigating the teen. “If you...

CRIME WAVE SWEEPS DURHAM Grad student killed in off-campus apartment By: Chelsea Allison Posted: 1/18/08 A Duke graduate student was found shot to death at 11:30 p.m. Friday inside his home at The Anderson Apartments, just 1.6 miles from West Campus. Abhijit Mahato, 29, was a second-year Ph.D. candidate in the Pratt School of Engineering studying computational contact mechanics. The Durham Police Department is treating the crime as a homicide, which authorities said appeared to be motivated by robbery. It was the city's second murder of the year, with 2008's first killing occurring just hours earlier on Burke Street, 1.4...

Former District Attorney Mike Nifong filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday as city leaders, police and other officials began answering one of the federal civil-rights lawsuits triggered by the Duke lacrosse case. Meanwhile, the first replies from defendants in the Evans/Finnerty/Seligmann lawsuit came Tuesday from Nifong's former investigator, Linwood Wilson, and DNA Securities Inc., the Burlington lab that tested samples gathered from the players and stripper who falsely accused them. Late Tuesday, dismissal motions were also filed on behalf of City Manager Patrick Baker, former Police Chief Steve Chalmers, Deputy Police Chief Ron Hodge, Maj. Beverly Council, Maj. Lee Russ, Capt....

Disgraced Duke prosecutor lists $180M in liabilities A summary schedule from Nifong's Chapter 7 petition can be found below. Almost all of that sum represents legal claims filed against the former Durham County district attorney by members of Duke's 2006 lacrosse team, including the three players who were accused of raping a stripper at a team party. Included among Nifong's assets are a 2003 Honda Accord, about $9000 in personal property, and his $235,000 home. He lists nearly $5000 monthly in pension or retirement income and describes himself, charitably, as retired. snip

RALEIGH, N.C. — The disgraced former prosecutor who led the debunked Duke lacrosse rape case has filed for bankruptcy. Mike Nifong cited more than $180 million dollars in liabilities and only $243,898 in assets of real and personal property.

Michael Nifong, the former North Carolina district attorney who unsuccessfully prosecuted Duke University lacrosse players for rape, sought bankruptcy protection from creditors including the athletes. Nifong, listed debt of $180.3 million and assets of $243,898 in documents filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Durham, North Carolina. The prosecutor stepped down last year. North Carolina officials stripped him of his law license for unethical conduct in the 2006 investigation of the allegations against the players. The three former players who had rape charges against them dropped sued Nifong in federal court in Durham in October. Collin Finnerty, David F. Evans...

Amazing--a middle school girl makes a false allegation of rape against a construction worker who is working at her school, and the result is: a) An outpouring of support and sympathy for the falsely accused construction worker. b) A tearful apology from the false accuser to the falsely accused construction worker. c) A tearful apology from the false accuser's parents to the falsely accused construction worker. d) A call for increased awareness of false allegations of rape. e) A call for increased vigilance against construction workers. If you picked "e", you're correct. The unbelievable story is below. To write a...

Several months ago, FReepers were able to provide a link to FBI statistics showing that rape by white men of black women was so rare as to be non existant. This was at the height of the Nifong/ Duke Lacross scandal. I didn't book mark the link to those reports, but since my son has been given an assignment by his High School English teacher on the topic of "Racism and Prejudice" in modern America-we need those numbers. If you know where we can find them, please provide links, along with any Ward Connerly, Bill Cosby, Juan William's essays which...

From Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine's new press release Governor Kaine Announces 2008 Legislative Initiatives on Domestic and Sexual Violence (1/2/08): "The Violence Against Women Act of 2005 also prohibits law enforcement officers from asking or requiring a victim of an alleged sex offense to submit to a polygraph examination as a condition for proceeding with the investigation of such an offense... "In 2004, the Department of Criminal Justice Services conducted a survey of sexual Assault policies of law enforcement agencies. A little over 72% of respondents indicated that they sometimes performed polygraph exams on victims of sexual assault. Only...

Baker added to Duke lacrosse suit By Anne Blythe, Staff Writer The lawyers representing the three exonerated lacrosse players amended the civil suit in federal court today to include City Manager Patrick Baker as one of the officials they are suing. Baker announced today that he would be stepping aside at the end of the year as city manager to become city attorney, a job that comes with a higher salary but less decision-making power. As Baker met with reporters to discuss his plans to end a tumultuous three years as the city's manager, the lawyers for the exonerated lacrosse...