Crystal Mangum

The 2006 Duke University lacrosse case was a scandal that started in March 2006 when Crystal Gail Mangum,[1][2][3] an African American stripper and escort, a student at North Carolina Central University, falsely accused three white members of Duke University's men's lacrosse team[4] of raping her at a party held at the house of two of the team's captains in Durham, North Carolina, USA on March 13, 2006.

On April 11, 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges and declared the three players innocent. Cooper stated that the charged players – Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans – were victims of a "tragic rush to accuse."[5] The initial prosecutor for the case, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, who had been denounced as a "rogue prosecutor" by Cooper, withdrew from the case in January 2007 after the North Carolina State Bar filed ethics charges against him. That June, Nifong was disbarred for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation," making Nifong the first prosecutor in North Carolina history to lose his law license based on actions in a case. Nifong was found guilty of criminal contempt and served one day in jail.[6]

Cooper pointed to several inconsistencies in Mangum’s accounts of the evening as well as unimpeachable alibi evidence provided by Seligmann and Finnerty in the summary of findings report. The Durham Police Department has also come under fire for violating their own policies by allowing Nifong to act as the de facto head of the investigation, giving a suspect-only photo identification procedure to Mangum, pursuing with the case despite vast discrepancies in notes taken by Investigator Benjamin Himan and Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, and the release of a guilt presuming poster shortly after the allegations.[7] The ex-players are seeking unspecified damages and new criminal justice reform laws in a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city of Durham.[7] The case has sparked varied responses from the media, faculty groups, students, the community, and others.

Duke University suspended the lacrosse team for two games on March 28, 2006. On April 5, 2006, Duke's lacrosse coach Mike Pressler was forced to resign and Duke President Richard Brodhead canceled the remainder of the 2006 season.

Source: Wikipedia