RALEIGH,
N.C. (AP) - Time and time again, Mike Nifong strode into court and
confidently proclaimed that three Duke lacrosse players raped a woman
at a team party. He smirked when anyone suggested otherwise. The
Durham County district attorney thundered away in interviews, calling
the players "hooligans," framing the case as a racially motivated
attack by privileged white students. He never even hinted that his case
started out weak and soon became fatally flawed. That
self-assured Mike Nifong of 2006 couldn't be more different than the
disgraced man who left a courthouse through a side door on Saturday -
quiet, humbled and disbarred. The disciplinary committee that
stripped the veteran prosecutor of his state law license called it "a
clear case of intentional prosecutorial misconduct" that involved
"dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation." The panel
said Nifong manipulated the investigation to boost his chances of
winning his first election, then allowed the false rape allegations to
fester for months. "This matter has been a fiasco," said F.
Lane Williamson, the committee chairman in announcing the disbarment.
"There's no doubt about it." When the allegation became
public, protesters marched on the Duke campus and in Durham. The
university canceled the highly ranked team's season and accepted the
resignation of longtime coach Mike Pressler. Nifong charged three
players - Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans - with rape,
kidnapping and sexual offense. A year later, they were cleared
once state prosecutors determined the accuser's shifting account of a
March 2006 attack was a lie. Even though the veteran prosecutor refused
to admit to the end that no crime occurred, Nifong and his attorneys
supported the decision to disbar him. "It's a shame he didn't
listen to people who were trying to tell him this months and months
ago," said Joseph Cheshire, Evans' attorney. The committee
said Nifong manipulated the investigation to boost his chances of
winning his first election for Durham County district attorney.
Williamson specifically cited Nifong's comments in the early days of
the case, which included a confident proclamation at a candidate forum
that he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse
players from Duke raping a black girl." He also called the lacrosse
team "a bunch of hooligans" at one point. Appointed district
attorney in 2005, Nifong was in a tight race for the office when a
stripper told police she was raped at the March 2006 party. "At
the time he was facing a primary, and yes, he was politically naive,"
Williamson said. "But we can draw no other conclusion that those
initial statements he made were to further his political ambitions." During
the ethics trial, Nifong acknowledged he knew there was no DNA evidence
connecting Seligmann and Finnerty to the 28-year-old accuser when he
indicted them on charges of rape, sexual offense and kidnapping. Nifong
later charged Evans with the same crimes. But months later, state
prosecutors concluded the three players were "innocent" - a fact
Williamson hammered home on Saturday. "We acknowledge the
actual innocence of the defendants, and there's nothing here that has
done anything but support that assertion," Williamson said. Williamson
said it appeared that throughout his investigation, Nifong was looking
for any evidence to link a lacrosse player to the accuser's story in
order to support his initial comments that he was sure an attack
occurred.
Time and time again, Mike Nifong strode into court and confidently proclaimed that three Duke lacrosse players raped a woman at a team party. He smirked when anyone suggested otherwise. - By AARON BEARD
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