More Amazing Holes in the Duke Lacrosse Story By Betsy Newmark
Is there anything left to that prosecutor’s case? One of the defendant’s lawyers has filed a motion that lays bare more inconsistencies and holes in the alleged victim’s story. This is amazing stuff.
Osborn’s most damaging allegation is a statement from a Durham police investigator summarizing a conversation he had with the second dancer, Kim Roberts, on March 20. Investigator Benjamin Himan says Roberts told him the rape allegation was a “crock.” Roberts also told police that she was with the accuser for all but five minutes that night.
The motion also says the alleged victim told Durham police that she had performed for a couple at a Raleigh hotel hours before the Duke lacrosse party. She told police that she used a vibrator. Osborn suggests that could be the source of the vaginal injuries mentioned in the rape kit report.
The defense attorney also takes issue with the rape examination itself, pointing out that the nurse who assisted in the exam was in training. Osborn says the only evidence of physical trauma the nurse could find was a scratch on the accuser’s knee and a small cut on her heel, which was not bleeding.
The motion also alleges the police investigator stated the accuser was hit, kicked and strangled, but did not reveal that the examining physician found no neck, back, chest or abdominal tenderness.
Osborn says the accuser gave conflicting accounts of what happened. The motion says medical records indicate she told a doctor that she used no alcohol or drugs. The accuser told the sexual assault nurse that she had consumed one drink of alcohol and was taking Flexeril, a prescription drug used to treat muscle spasms.
The alleged victim told a doctor the next day at UNC Hospitals that “she was drunk and had had a lot of alcohol that night,” the motion said.
She later told police that she had consumed a 24-ounce bottle of beer and then told police she had two 22-ounce bottles of beer, according to the motion.
The accuser told the nurse that Roberts assisted players in the alleged sexual assault and that the second dancer stole her money and property, the motion said.
Osborn says a man named Jarriel Johnson drove the accuser to the Durham Police Department to pick up her belongings March 21. The motion points to a statement from Johnson saying the accuser engaged in sexual activity with at least four different men from March 10 to March 12.
Remember, assuming he reads his own police reports, the District Attorney had to know all this stuff and he still went forward with asking the grand jury for indictments. It is so scary to think of the power that one district attorney can have to bring a prosecution based on such an obviously flimsy story.
I keep coming back to what people would be saying if a prosecutor were going forward with such a tissue of lies against three black men accused of raping a white woman. We would be having marches and riots. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be bruised from elbowing each other out of the way to get to the microphone to decry the racist district attorney who is persecuting these young men. But because the races are reversed we keep hearing about their arrests for public urination and having open bottles of beer as if that was a sign of a deeply evil character.
This case should be dismissed and this DA should suffer whatever torments the law provides for a public official who knowingly brings such a clearly dishonest case. The defense lawyer’s filing says that the DA deliberately left this information out of his filing to get the warrant for the players’ DNA and photos for that improper lineup. The judge who signed off on those warrants should be furious about being deceived. Nifong needs to burn for what he had done to those boys, the team, Duke, and Durham. His behavior is inexcusable.
This content was used with the permission of Betsy’s Page.