Police Search Duke Players' Dorms

Hours after two Duke University lacrosse players turned themselves in and were charged with raping and kidnapping a stripper at an off-campus party, police searched their dormitory rooms for more evidence.

District Attorney Mike Nifong said Tuesday he had hoped to link a third possible suspect to the alleged attack and bring charges at the same time, "but the evidence available to me at this time does not permit that."

If there is a third indictment, it likely will not happen before May 1, when the next grand jury meets, CBS News correspondent Trish Regan reports.

The two players' dorm rooms were searched for about two hours Tuesday night, according to resident assistant Taggart White. Durham police said they had no information on the search.

The accuser, a 27-year-old student from a nearby college, claims she was attacked by three white men at an off-campus house the night of March 13. Nifong said the third man had not been "identified with certainty."

"It is important that we not only bring the assailants to justice, but also that we lift the cloud of suspicion from those team members who were not involved in the assault," Nifong said in a statement.

Two Duke lacrosse players, Reade Seligmann, a second-year student from Essex Fells, New Jersey, and Collin Finnerty, a second-year student from Garden City, New York, were booked and released on $400,000 bail Tuesday. Their lawyers assailed the district attorney for bringing the charges. If found guilty the players face a minimum of twelve years in jail and could get life sentences, Regan reports.

The results of additional DNA tests ordered by the district attorney are expected soon; defense attorneys say they will help clear their clients.

Sources tell CBS News that defense already has evidence that they plan to use to illustrate the suspects' innocence, includingcell phone records, taxi cab dispatch logs, and ATM receipts that Seligmann's attorneys claim will show Seligmann was not even in the house at the time of the alleged rape. Finnerty's lawyer may also try to prove that he was not present.

Seligmann is "absolutely innocent," said attorney Kirk Osborn. Finnerty's attorney, Bill Cotter, said, "We're confident that these young men will be found to be innocent."

The case has raised racial tensions and heightened the long-standing antagonism between Duke students and middle-class, racially mixed Durham. The accuser is black, and all but one of the 47 lacrosse team members are white.

Seligmann and Finnerty were charged with first-degree rape, sexual offense and kidnapping. Other attorneys for Duke lacrosse players said the two were not even present at the time the rape is alleged to have occurred.

The district attorney would not say what evidence led to the charges. But Osborn, Seligmann's attorney, said: "Apparently it was a photographic identification. And we all know how reliable that is."

Another attorney, Robert Ekstrand, who represents dozens of players, said neither Seligmann nor Finnerty was at the party "at the relevant time." The indictment represents "a horrible circumstance and a product of a rush to judgment," Ekstrand said.

Attorneys for the players have demanded Nifong drop the investigation, arguing that DNA tests failed to connect any of the team members to the alleged rape. They have also charged that the accuser was intoxicated and injured when she showed up for the party.

A cousin of the accuser who has been acting as a spokeswoman for her family disputed that allegations in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday. She identified herself only by her first name, Jackie, to protect the woman's identity.

"Before she went to the party she was not intoxicated, she was not drinking," Jackie said. "There's a great possibility that when she went to the party, she was given a drink and it was drugged."

"Clearly, there is more to this story than what has been made public; than what defense attorneys or the prosecutor have disclosed," CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen says. "There has to be because what has been talked about publicly is a terribly weak case; one that even an eager grand jury would not have embraced the way this one did."

Duke would not comment specifically on any disciplinary action taken against Seligmann and Finnerty, but said it is university practice to suspend students charged with a felony.

Since the scandal broke, Duke has said it is investigating the behavior of the school's nationally ranked lacrosse team, some of whose members had been found guilty of public intoxication and public urination. The case has led to the resignation of the coach and the cancellation of the rest of the season.

"Many lives have been touched by this case," Duke President Richard Brodhead said in a statement. "It has brought pain and suffering to all involved, and it deeply challenges our ability to balance judgment with compassion."

Neither Seligmann and Finnerty was among the team members arrested in recent years for such offenses as underage drinking and public urination.

Finnerty, however, was charged in Washington, D.C., with assault after a man told police in November that Finnerty and two friends punched him and called him "gay and other derogatory names." Finnerty agreed to community service.

Both Seligmann and Finnerty are products of wealthy New York City suburbs and all-male Roman Catholic prep schools. Finnerty attended Long Island's Chaminade High School, where 99 percent of the students go on to college. Seligmann went to the exclusive Delbarton School, a lacrosse powerhouse in Morristown, New Jersey.

"It is our hope and our conviction that the full truth of all that happened that night will vindicate Reade of these charges," Delbarton's headmaster, the Rev. Luke L. Travers, said in a statement.