W-OLF
04-19-2006, 03:36 PM
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - Police searched the dorm rooms of two Duke University lacrosse players after the two were arrested on charges of raping and kidnapping an exotic dancer during an off-campus team party.
District Attorney Mike Nifong said Tuesday he also hoped to link a third man to the alleged attack soon, but he said that person 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.
The accuser, a 27-year-old student at a nearby college, told police she was attacked by three white men at a house where she and another woman were hired to dance at a party of lacrosse team members the night of March 13.
Two team members - Reade Seligmann, a sophomore from Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, a sophomore from Garden City, N.Y. - were arrested early Tuesday. Each posted $400,000 bond and was released within hours.
Their lawyers assailed the district attorney for bringing the charges after DNA tests had failed to connect any of the team members to the alleged rape.
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."
Nifong has declined to say what led to the charges or discuss evidence in the case. The dorm rooms were searched Tuesday night for about two hours, according to resident assistant Taggart White.
Defense attorneys have said they have time-stamped photos from the party, bank records, cell phone calls and a taxi driver's statement to support Seligmann's claim of innocence.
Robert Ekstrand, who represents dozens of players on the team, 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," he said.
Defense attorneys have also alleged 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."
The case has raised racial tensions and heightened the long-standing town-vs.-gown 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.
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.
"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."
Since the scandal broke, the university has canceled the team's season, its coach resigned and Duke officials said they were investigating the behavior of the nationally ranked team, some of whose members have been found guilty of public intoxication and public urination.
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, N.J.
"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.
credit BellSOuth
District Attorney Mike Nifong said Tuesday he also hoped to link a third man to the alleged attack soon, but he said that person 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.
The accuser, a 27-year-old student at a nearby college, told police she was attacked by three white men at a house where she and another woman were hired to dance at a party of lacrosse team members the night of March 13.
Two team members - Reade Seligmann, a sophomore from Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, a sophomore from Garden City, N.Y. - were arrested early Tuesday. Each posted $400,000 bond and was released within hours.
Their lawyers assailed the district attorney for bringing the charges after DNA tests had failed to connect any of the team members to the alleged rape.
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."
Nifong has declined to say what led to the charges or discuss evidence in the case. The dorm rooms were searched Tuesday night for about two hours, according to resident assistant Taggart White.
Defense attorneys have said they have time-stamped photos from the party, bank records, cell phone calls and a taxi driver's statement to support Seligmann's claim of innocence.
Robert Ekstrand, who represents dozens of players on the team, 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," he said.
Defense attorneys have also alleged 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."
The case has raised racial tensions and heightened the long-standing town-vs.-gown 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.
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.
"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."
Since the scandal broke, the university has canceled the team's season, its coach resigned and Duke officials said they were investigating the behavior of the nationally ranked team, some of whose members have been found guilty of public intoxication and public urination.
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, N.J.
"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.
credit BellSOuth