Most people reading this will remember the Duke lacrosse rape case, where 27-year-old stripper Crystal Gail Mangum accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape in March 2006 after an off-campus party that was held on March 13th and went on into the early morning hours.
Though it turned out that the accusations were false, Mangum maintained her story even in the book she wrote in 2008.
But this week, as she continues to serve time for second-degree murder in the 2011 death of her then-boyfriend, Mangum finally confessed to falsely accusing the players:
Mangum made her confession in an interview published Wednesday on “Let’s Talk with Kat,” hosted by Katerena DePasquale, at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women.
[…]
“I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me,” Mangum said in the interview. “[I] made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.”
Watch:
More than 18 years after the Duke lacrosse allegations, Crystal Mangum admits that she made it all up.
“I testified falsely against [the lacrosse players] by saying that they raped me when they didn’t…I made up a story that wasn’t true…I hope that they can forgive me.” pic.twitter.com/3yMjbQTQXH— KC Johnson (@kcjohnson9) December 12, 2024
As many will recall, a mob-rule atmosphere took hold after the allegations were made public:
Players were ostracized and received death threats. The team was condemned by faculty, and their season suspended. Black Panthers set up camp on the quad. White residents of Durham were randomly beaten up. The local paper took the side of the stripper. The police intimidated witnesses who had alibis for the accused. The DA committed fraud, lied and misrepresented information (he was eventually disbarred).
After her accusations, these things happened:
Players were ostracized and received death threats. The team was condemned by faculty, and their season suspended. Black Panthers set up camp on the quad. White residents of Durham were randomly beaten up. The local paper took the…
— i/o (@eyeslasho) December 13, 2024
A group of 88 Duke professors took out an ad in April of that year in the student newspaper, strongly insinuating without evidence that the players were guilty of racism, sexism, and rape, and saying they (the professors) were listening as the community shared their stories of feeling targeted based on their race/sex.
“We’re turning up the volume in a moment when some of the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait,” they also wrote.
There was also serious misconduct during the course of the investigation, which was led by then-Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong (D), who was running for re-election in 2006 (and won) but ended up resigning in disgrace the following year during a misconduct hearing that eventually resulted in him being disbarred:
The [North Carolina State] bar’s three-member disciplinary panel unanimously found Nifong guilty of fraud, dishonesty, deceit or misrepresentation; of making false statements of material fact before a judge; of making false statements of material fact before bar investigators, and of lying about withholding exculpatory DNA evidence, among other violations.
Then-state attorney general (now governor) Roy Cooper (D) even went so far as to declare the players “innocent” when he announced charges would be dropped, saying the case was “the result of a tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations.”
There were also lawsuits filed against the city of Durham and Duke University, which were settled out of court.
The national media – starting with heavily biased North Carolina news outlets – led the way in fanning the flames and racial tensions that surrounded the case (Mangum was black; the players were white).
It cannot be overstated how badly the mainstream press fueled perceptions about the wrongfully accused and the false accuser in the case, as noted by George Washington University law school professor Jonathan Turley:
The greatest unfairness to these students came not from such extreme voices but mainstream media, which showed little interest or comfort in exploring contradictions and gaps in the account.
As is often the case, the hoax was later revealed and there was a collective shrug from most in the media as we await the next cathartic case or controversy.
Yep, no lessons were learned in the aftermath among the Usual Suspects. The so-called “Group of 88” professors never apologized and the media is more biased and woke than ever.
The accused players, Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann, and David Evans, went on to have successful careers, but those dark days no doubt still haunt them. As of this writing, they have not commented publicly about Mangum’s admission.
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