E-Mail Shocker In Duke Lacrosse Case
Now-Suspended Player Allegedly Wrote Of Wanting To Kill Strippers
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Play CBS Video Video Duke Professor On Alleged Rape Only On The Web: Duke University professor Houston Baker tells Trish Regan there is a long history of problems caused by the school's lacrosse players.
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Video Duke Prof.: Too Many Rumors Only On The Web: James Coleman, a professor at Duke University, talks to Trish Regan about the ongoing investigation into an alleged rape by members of the university's lacrosse team.
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Video NAACP Wants Answers The rape allegations against Duke University's lacrosse team have sent shock waves through the Durham, N.C., community. The NAACP is demanding to meet with the local prosecutor. Drew Levinson reports.
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Duke lacrosse coach Mike Pressler, center, speaks with the team during practice on campus, March 29, 2006, in Durham, N.C. Pressler resigned as coach on April 5. (AP Photo)
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This undated photo provided by the Duke University Sports Information Office shows Duke lacrosse team member Ryan McFadyen, a 19-year-old sophomore from Mendham, N.J. (AP Photo/Duke University Sports)
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Mike Pressler, left, on the job last week as lacrosse coach for Duke University in Durham, N.C. He has resigned as coach and the rest of the season has been cancelled. (AP/The News & Observer)
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Students at North Carolina Central University rally on April 3, 2006, on campus in Durham, N.C., in support of a student who alleges she was raped by members of the Duke University lacrosse team. (AP)
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This house in Durham, N.C., according to police, is the place where a 27-year-old student and stripper says she was raped on March 13, 2006, by three members of the Duke University lacrosse team. (CBS/AP)
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Interactive Sexual Assault Facts and statistics on sexual assault and rape, with victim resources.
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Interactive FBI Crime Statistics Explore the latest information on U.S. crime, from acts of violence to property damage.
Brodhead said McFadyen is the only player suspended so far, and that he was removed from campus. Brodhead also said he has heard that other lacrosse team members have changed their places of residence for safety reasons.
Shortly after the e-mail's release, lacrosse coach Mike Pressler resigned, ending a 16-year tenure marked by three Atlantic Coast Conference championships and a trip to last year's national championship game.
Brodhead would not say whether Pressler's resignation was requested, saying only, "When it was offered, I thought it was highly appropriate."
The investigation of Duke's response will be conducted by William Bowen, president of the Andrew Mellon Foundation and a past president of Princeton University, and Julius Chambers, former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and a past NCCU chancellor.
The university's critics have complained that it has taken three weeks to take these actions. There have been nearly daily protests on and off campus.
Coincidentally, McFadyen attended a "Take Back the Night" march on campus on March 29.
"I completely support this event and this entire week," the player told The Chronicle, Duke's student newspaper. "It's just sad that the allegations we are accused of happened to fall when they did."
McFadyen's attorney, Glen Bachman, took over his representation late Wednesday from attorney Robert Ekstrand, who said earlier in the day that while its language was vile, "the e-mail itself is perfectly consistent with the boys' unequivocal assertion that no sexual assault took place that evening."
Bachman declined to comment on the e-mail and its contents.
The (Raleigh) News & Observer reports that during the past three years, 15 players had criminal charges brought against them, and that most of those charges were resolved in deals with prosecutors that allowed the players to escape criminal convictions.
In the warrant to search the player's room, police provided a detailed timeline of the alleged attack and some additional details of their investigation. The warrant also adds conspiracy to commit murder as one of the crimes police are investigating.
Also, in a February 2005 posting to a friend's bravenet.com guestbook, McFadyen wrote of enjoying Duke lacrosse, but noting "we have 48-hour rule so we can only drink hardcore on saturday nights ..." He also joked, in error-riddled sentences, about two fellow players "being women on the lacrosse field, menaing they both got hurt so coach rips them appart."
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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