Two indicted in Duke lacrosse case

A Durham judge seals the indictment concerning the rape accusation of a dancer at a party

DURHAM -- A grand jury Monday indicted two Duke University lacrosse players in connection with a woman's allegations that three men raped her at a team party.

Durham lawyer Bob Ekstrand, who represents more than 30 lacrosse players, confirmed the charges but would not identify the players named in sealed indictments or say what crimes they are accused of.

Superior Court Judge Ronald Stephens filed a manila envelope containing the sealed indictments shortly after a grand jury finished its business Monday afternoon. Stephens, in an order scrawled on the back of the envelope, cited a little-used state law that allows him to keep the charges secret until a suspect is arrested or goes before a judge.

The sealing of the indictments protracted a story that has played out in a clamorous court of public opinion, with race, class and sexual violence driving the debate. The accuser, 27, is black and a student at N.C. Central University, and she said she was raped by three white men.

On Monday, the judge refused to say why he sealed the charges. By 11:45 p.m., none of the players had been to the Durham County jail.

"Two young men have been charged with crimes they did not commit. This is a tragedy," Ekstrand said in a prepared statement. "For the two young men, an ordeal lies ahead. They do not face it alone; they face it with the love of family and friends and strengthened by the truth. They are both innocent."

Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and other lawyers representing team members declined to comment.

The case has widened the divide between Duke University and Durham.

John Burness, the school's senior vice president for public affairs and government relations, said in a prepared statement that Duke officials had scant knowledge of Monday's events and that it would be inappropriate to comment before more particulars are known.

The case began March 14 when the woman who was hired to dance at the party told police that she was raped, sodomized, beaten and strangled in a bathroom.

The players, through their attorneys, said the accuser concocted the story. The players' attorneys say no rape, no assault and no sex occurred at the party.

The lawyers have said the accuser was drunk and already injured when she arrived at the three-bedroom house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. for the party late March 13. A judge ordered DNA tests on the team's 46 white players; he excluded the only black team member.

The players' attorneys say the tests showed none of the players' genetic material on or in the woman.

Nifong, bolstered by a medical exam that found injuries on the woman consistent with sexual assault, says he is confident that she was assaulted in the university-owned house. Nifong said last week at a forum at NCCU that the accuser identified at least one of her attackers.

Until Sunday night, the only other witness, the second woman hired to dance at the party, had remained silent. In television interviews, she told her story.

The woman's attorney, Mark Simeon of Durham, declined Monday to make her available for an interview. She spoke on the MSNBC cable news network, which did not identify her and showed her in silhouette. Simeon confirmed that it was his client on MSNBC.

The woman told MSNBC that she did not witness a rape and does not know whether one occurred.

The woman said she arrived thinking that she would be dancing at a bachelor party of 15 people. She was not expecting a party of lacrosse players, many of whom she said were in a drunken stupor. The woman said she was infuriated to learn that some players photographed her dancing.