Lacrosse legal strife erupts early

No charges have been filed, but the district attorney and players' lawyers have been vocal

Lawyers representing members of Duke University's men's lacrosse team are offering more detailed accounts of the night that a woman reported a gang-rape at a team party.

District Attorney Mike Nifong says he is confident that the accuser, who was hired from an escort service to dance for the team, was sexually assaulted as March 13 turned into the 14th. But so far he has brought no charges. Just as adamant are defense lawyers, who say no sexual assault occurred -- no sex at all.

In few criminal cases have the prosecution and defense stuck their necks out so far and so fast.

"When the DA says there was a sexual assault and she was beaten up, the opinion of the public was formed fairly quickly," said Jim Cooney, a Charlotte defense lawyer who represents no team members. "The best the defense lawyers can do is to blunt the damage and get people to pause and think a little. ... No matter how flat the pancake, there are always two sides."

The case has exposed issues of race, class, sexual violence and a rift between Duke and the city surrounding the campus. The dancer making the allegations is black; all members of the lacrosse team but one are white.

A judge has ordered DNA tests for all but the team's black member -- the accuser said her attackers are white. Results, which defense lawyers say will clear their clients, are expected next week.

The only factual evidence made public has been two recordings of 911 calls and two search warrant affidavits that include the woman's account of being strangled and beaten in a bathroom at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. Four of her fingernails were later found in the bathroom, and a nurse who examined her said the woman's injuries and behavior were consistent with a traumatic experience, a search warrant said.

Nifong, who this week has granted no interviews, made his case on national television. This week, defense lawyers began making theirs.

"I've never seen a case being tried so early, and based on such inconclusive evidence, being tried in the media," Pete Anderson, a Charlotte lawyer representing one player, said Friday.

Defense attorneys say Nifong's media blitz forces them to respond before charges have been filed.

"If the district attorney didn't put us in this position where we have to answer these questions, we wouldn't be discussing this," said Joseph B. Cheshire, a Raleigh lawyer representing a team captain who lived at the Buchanan Boulevard house, which was known as a party spot.

The defense lawyers -- at least a dozen representing members of the 47-player squad -- say players hired the two dancers to perform at a Monday-night party during spring break.

Cheshire said the players say the women came to the house separately nearly 30 minutes apart. "I don't think they knew each other," Cheshire said. He said the second dancer to arrive, the accuser, was "substantially impaired."

Anderson, the Charlotte lawyer, said the women received $800. The performance, however, was brief.

"They were paid a good deal of money," Cheshire said. "They actually danced for three minutes and decided they were going to leave."

Anderson said the men became angry. "They had higher expectations for the length of the dance," he said.

Kerry Sutton, a lawyer representing one of the team's four captains, said e-mail messages sent after the party support the players' story that the women took the money after dancing for only a few minutes, but Sutton would not release any of the communications.

In an interview with The News & Observer last month, the accuser said that shortly after the women began dancing, the men threatened her and used racial slurs. The woman told police that after she left the house, she returned and was assaulted.

It is the policy of The N&O not to identify people who report that they were sexually assaulted.

The defense lawyers say that the woman's accusations are false and that Nifong has overreached.

"It is clear that he has made conclusions that a rape has occurred," Anderson said. "Who could possibly, even if it's narrowed down to two or three [people], who could get a fair trial?"

Defense lawyers question whether Nifong's campaign for re-election is driving his public statements.

"This case plays upon sex, it plays upon race, it plays upon class, and it plays upon re-election," Anderson said. "When you have these elements coming together at one time, it is a political tinderbox."

Nifong, asked a week ago about news coverage of the case, said, "Having said something other than 'no comment' in the first place, it's kind of like going into Iraq.

"It's not a question of if you're right to go in there. It's a question of is it right to leave things a mess at this point in time?"

(Staff writer Benjamin Niolet contributed to this report.)