Duke Rape Suspects Speak Out

60 Minutes' Ed Bradley Talks To The Accused Lacrosse Players, Who Have Never Before Been Interviewed

(CBS) 
Without the DNA evidence he had hoped for, the D.A. needed the accuser to identify the three men who had raped her. Days after the party, she was shown photo lineups of 36 lacrosse players and didn’t pick out anyone as her attacker. In fact, she didn’t recognize David Evans at all, and was fairly certain only that she had seen Reade Seligmann somewhere at the party. So, two weeks later, the D.A. supervised another line-up, this one showing mugshots of all 46 white players on the team.

"It felt like Russian roulette," Seligmann recalls. "It could have been any single one of us. Kids were even calculating their chances of what the percentage was that you would get picked."

This time, Seligmann did get picked. The accuser said she was 100 percent sure he looked like the person who had forced her to perform oral sex. But Seligmann says that’s impossible, and that he has hard evidence to prove it. Cell phone records show that right after the accuser stopped dancing at the party, Seligmann made nine separate calls over the next nine minutes. The last call was to a taxi company, which picked him up a few minutes later.

Asked why he left when he did, Seligmann says, "I didn't like the tone of the party, and I just, it made me uncomfortable. It's as simple as that. I thought it was a boring party and I didn’t like the tone."

A few minutes later, he was captured on a bank security camera withdrawing cash from an ATM. The taxi driver says they then stopped off at a take-out restaurant, and by 12:46 a.m., Reade Seligmann was back in his dorm.

Seligmann says based on that evidence, it couldn't have been him. "It's impossible. It's impossible for it to have happened," he tells Bradley.

Seligmann says his lawyer offered to present proof of his whereabouts to authorities, but said they didn’t want to hear it.

He says he never once talked to the police about the night. Seligmann says he was never interviewed by police or anyone from the district attorney's office about what happened that night.

The accuser also identified Collin Finnerty in the final photo lineup, saying he raped and sodomized her. Finnerty says he wasn’t there when a rape could have happened, and says he will wait until trial to provide specific documentation that he also left the party early.

Asked when he left the party, Finnerty tells Bradley, "I left soon after I saw them do their act in the room with everybody else. I saw them leave the room. I never saw them again in my life."

As for David Evans, when the accuser saw his photograph for a third time, having been unable to recognize him before, she said she was 90 percent sure Evans had raped her – but, she added, the man who raped her had a mustache.

But Evans maintains he did not have a mustache that night. "Absolutely not. And, I tried to provide the district attorney with photographs showing that I didn't, and he refused to view them," he says.

Still, the players were indicted, based largely on the results from that final photo line-up. How did that happen?

60 Minutes asked James Coleman, a prominent law professor at Duke University Law School who helped establish guidelines in North Carolina designed to protect against false identifications in police line-ups. He says this line-up broke one basic principle: there were no “filler” photos, no pictures of people not connected to the case. The accuser only saw photos of lacrosse players who police told her were at the party.

"If she’s told all of these people who were considered suspects were at the party, so you pick three and we’ll indict those three," Coleman says.

"So she can’t make a mistake," Bradley remarks.

"Can’t make a mistake," Coleman replies.

Professor Coleman says the line-up ordered by the D.A. for the Duke lacrosse case violated local, state and federal guidelines. The D.A. has been quoted as saying that will be up to a judge to decide.

Asked why a district attorney would order a line-up that breaks virtually every rule in the book, Coleman says, "Well that's a good question for the D.A. But I assume that, you know after his initial performance, in this case, he needed to indict at least three players. And charge them with what he said was a rape that had occurred."

So, what is the evidence that suggests a rape did occur? The district attorney, Mike Nifong, who has repeatedly declined 60 Minutes' requests for an interview, told a local reporter the evidence could be found in the medical reports.

"My reading from the emergency room nurse would indicate that some sort of sexual assault did in fact take place," he said.

[dkaffinated]

This prosecuter should be imprisoned for as long as each man would have been. say 25 years. how many lives has he ruined? i say make every cop prosecutor attorney congressman everyone that can affect our lives be subject to regular drug/ hair sample testing and polygraphs tand be made public info. lets weed out the scum. maybe nobody left to work but then most dont work anyway.

[cbsmoron1]

hello

[cbsmoron1]

this is a test.

[cbsmoron1]

this is a test.

[cbsmoron1]

hello

[acccbb]

Justice 58
Since you are the person who started the blog "Justice for 2 sisters", it is certainly not a surprise that no matter how much evidence that supports that this was a false accusation, you refuse to accept it. I have read your posts since the beginning of this case, and it is obvious you have no interest in justice. You want to punish innocent white men because you are a racist plain and simple. By the way, is the site going to be renamed to be called "justice for 1 sister"? As I understand it, you no longer believe the "other" sister Kim is telling the truth.

[leilni_in_tx]

Either Mike Nifong is the most professionally incompetent DA ever elected in the history of american jurisprudence or this has got to be one of the worst cases of prosecutorial misconduct anyone's seen anywhere in the US in the last decade.

It's quite obvious to anyone who's followed the case that he either knew or should have known that the accusations could not be substantiated, but he pursued charges he knew were bogus solely because doing so would help him with a segment of the electorate in a close primary election. That's the textbook definition of corruption. Nifong belongs in jail.

Ultimately the taxpayers of Durham are going to have to pay through the nose for redress & recompense to the victims (the 3 players) for their crooked DA's gross criminal malfeasance.

And Duke U's administration isn't much better. Nobody in their right mind now could even think of sending their children to that school after seeing how these obviously innocent students were thrown to the wolves by Duke's president for the sake of political expediency. Shameful.

[justice58]

Tortmaster

"unfounded charges"??? are you kidding me.
The point is...I have been following this case from the VERY beginning. My view has not and will not change about the victim in this case, despite the one sided reporting. Again, Ed Bradley, you need to redeem yourself for this onesided view of so called journalism.

[tortmaster]

Mr. Ed Bradley followed the evidence and told the truth, and for that reason he will be remembered as a giant and a just man.

There is no way to tell two sides of a one-sided story. No DNA match, no trace evidence, airtight alibi, inconsistent stories of no rape, rape by 5, rape by 0, rape by 2, rape by 3, then the accuser identifies 4 as her 3 rapists, and on and on....

There is literally no credible evidence, not a scrap, to suggest that a rape ever occurred. That, and prosecutorial misconduct were the stories.

Please read up on the case before leveling unfounded charges against an honorable man.

[justice58]

I am a fan of Ed Bradley and have watched him for years. As I watched his segment on the duke rape scandal, I was shocked to see such one sided journalism. Ed Bradley should be ashamed. Where was the accuser's side? The investigation WAS not thorough and NEITHER was it complete. Some duke supporters have described the investigation as "true journalism" and I beg to differ. True journalism is telling both sides of the matter. I have always respected Ed Bradley in his reporting and he needs to give his viewers the same treatment. The truth should be told and it doesn't matter whose toes is stepped on. Ed Bradley, you need to redeem yourself. Shame on you!

[as28801]

I can't imagine how scary that is for you men. Good thing women only have to worry about being raped- which by the way, regardless of what this police officer has told you, happens constantly!
Again, this is not the issue. But thank you for proving my point. Because of this DA, now, men like you will have a case to point to in order to doubt women who come forward with a legitimate claim of being raped.

[verve2006-2009]

This case is yet another example of the fact that our legal system acts as a mechanism for any woman at any time to falsely accuse any man at any time of rape with a very strong potential of sending him to prison. Are all women capable of this? No. But it doesn't matter because it is impossible to determine which women are capable of this. If it was only one in a million, that is still too many for me or any man. Living in a world where a man can be falsely and so casually accused of the most serious of crimes and sent to prison on the whims of a fickle, spiteful individual, i.e., a woman, is like the most horrifying episode of The Twilight Zone that even Rod Serling could not even imagine.

[verve2006-2009]

Wow! What planet are you from? Here's an excerpt from an interview with a police officer recently.

"When asked what the police%u2019s biggest problem is when dealing with rape allegations she replied that the biggest problem was the enormous time the police waste chasing down false allegations. When asked to put a number on the percentage of false claims she replied %u201C95%.%u201DMost, she said, fell into definite patterns that she as a police officer had given names to.

1. Jilted lover syndrome.

This is where consensual *** has taken place followed by an argument, which results in a parting of the ways for the two former sweethearts. Feeling angry, the female half of the love duo decides to take revenge.

2. One night stand syndrome.

A woman goes out on the tiles for the evening. She meets up with a man and ends up back at his place where she indulges in consensual ***. By the end of the night she has fallen in love with her new Romeo but, alas, her love is not returned. She goes to the police claiming that she did not give consent.

3. Female caught in the act syndrome.

Hubby bursts in and catches his wife cheating on him with her boyfriend; she claims that she is being raped to cover up her own wrongdoing.

Overwhelming evidence shows that some women will lie about serious matters for the pettiest of reasons."

[as28801]

... And case in point (verve2006). In principle, let me repeat, the DA has acted horribly here and he is the one who should be disbarred and reprimanded. As for women falsely accusing men of rape, you are way off. It is the most underreported crime. How can you take this case to make such a broad generalization. It is very hard for women to come forward when they have been raped. And furthermore, it is very hard to convict rapists. So don't worry, women are raped every hour, everywhere and no one sits in jail because of it. And hopefully our Country will never follow in the footsteps of others as far as handling rape cases as you suggest.

[verve2006-2009]

There is a bigger story here and that is the subject of false accusations of rape running rampant in this country. Let's pray that once this men are in fact found innocent, that this high profile case will draw the necessary attention to this legal insanity of women destroying men's lives out of childish spite or financial gain. In China there is a basic rule of law that says if someone falsely accuses someone of a crime, the false accuser must face the punishment that would have been given to the accused- I want to see the law drastically altered in the U.S. to where women like these serve 10-20 years of incarceration, and are registered as *** offenders for life, and since these men would be serving time in a men's facility, make women like this one serve their time in a men's prison as well, and maybe then they will understand what rape really is. I guarantee the rate of false accusations would drop to zero overnight.

[shellee_rae]

I am very grateful to Ed Bradley for a very thorough and complete investigation: it is the first true journalism I have seen related to this case. He wiped away all of the progaganda that has been deluging the airwaves about who is exactly guilty, "her" or "them." All of this leads me to the basic question, with the evidence and facts in the case, how does the DA have enough evidence to have them charged or tried?

[as28801]

The Assistant District Attorney in this case has ruined the lives of many because he is a political opportunist. It is obvious how he has done so regarding the three accused. The rest of the team has suffered as well, as far as reputations being blemished to say the least. The alleged victim was used as a means to his case for political purposes. He spoon fed her from the beginning of the case. As for the community of Durham, he is using it as well because he hit a soft spot. He attached this nonsense rape case to a real and valid issue for them (the racial tension) which now will lose weight because his case is bogus. The permanent damage done is to women nationwide who get raped. We have worked so hard to facilitate women who want to come forward with rape allegations. It takes such courage and strength. Now, this liar and unethical politician has given the public a case to cite in doubting every woman's rape case.

[savelax]

this whole case is egregious, the stripper made false accusations as did some of the accused, the accused were doing it to protect themselves, and there future. The accusations affected more than just this lacrosse team, throw out the social garbage that any minority will pull out, she and her false accusations have driven a knife into the reputations of lacrosse players across the country, id like to say thanks to her and her greedy D.A. for poisoning the sport of lacrosse.

[sunkist01]

The punishment definitely didn't fit the "crime". No wonder Finnerty is frightened of the results of a Durham trial. Posted by acccbb at 12:28 AM : Oct 18, 20

You are no legal eagle, Finnerty is a time bomb waiting to exploit. He should have been charged with federal charges, he plead guilty in DC, no body is that unlucky and wealthy!

Please, he probation program is based on him not getting into any legal troubles, since the dipstick plead guilty in DC, his probation and deal can be thrown out. Finnerty has more to lose than any of them, perhaps he will go to jail in their place. The sooner the better!

[broken_heart-2009]

Please can we just drop the dang case! It's getting pretty old! He said this, she experienced that. Let's just charge them all for false accusations!