Attorney: Party pics help players

A sequence of photos from the lacrosse team party where police say a dancer was raped shows the accuser impaired and stumbling, team members drinking beer and the accuser smiling before passing out on the back porch, according to Joseph B. Cheshire V, a lawyer for one of the players.

"These photographs not only help to set the scene, a scene different than what has been described, but also create an appropriate timeline," Cheshire said in an interview Sunday.

According to police and court records, the team hired two women to dance at a party. Shortly after they started dancing, the accuser told police, some of the men became aggressive and threatened them. The women left, but then the accuser went back inside the house and was pulled into a bathroom and three men raped her, she told police.

Cheshire said the time-stamped photos have a 27-minute gap between when the two women stopped dancing and when the accuser was photographed outside the house. During that period, the dancers locked themselves in a bathroom then went outside, he said.

Cheshire declined to provide copies of the photos to The News & Observer and would not identify the photographer. And he has not shared the photos with prosecutors.

No charges have been filed, and District Attorney Mike Nifong did not respond to requests for comment Sunday.

The allegations of white athletes from an elite university raping an African-American woman have sparked a firestorm of protest in Durham and have drawn national media attention. The accuser is a student at N.C. Central University.

The first sequence of photographs, taken over three and a half minutes, shows two women dancing in negligees in the living room of the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., Cheshire said.

He gave the following description of the photographs: In the first, the accuser is prone on the floor, her face in the carpet.

The other photos show her on the floor, on all fours or on her back. The other dancer is on her feet for all the photos. The lacrosse players line the room, drinking out of beer cans and plastic cups, and one photo shows a player unconscious on the floor, his shorts pulled down and his underwear wet.

"The photographs show the accuser has bruises and cuts on her arms, legs and feet," Cheshire said. "These are visible at the very start of the dance."

Dancing cut short

The dance lasted less than four minutes, Cheshire said, when the second dancer stopped the performance after an offensive remark from a player.

There are no photos for the next 27 minutes. During this time, Cheshire said, the women locked themselves in a bathroom while one of the captains tried to persuade them to continue the show. Some players accused the women of pocketing the $800 fee and not performing. The dancers then left the house, he said.

Cheshire said the next photographs show the accuser on the back porch, fumbling through her purse. One shows her smiling at the photographer. She is still in her negligee, which does not appear torn or damaged, Cheshire said.

The next photo, six minutes later, shows her passed out on her side on the back porch, he said. Cheshire said the final photograph, taken three minutes later, shows a team captain helping the accuser into the other dancer's car.

"There was no rape in this house," Cheshire said. "It didn't happen."