Report involved abuse at age 14

Then-fiance of the woman who is now the accuser in the Duke case urged her to report a '93 assault

DURHAM -- A sex abuse allegation the accuser in the Duke University lacrosse rape scandal made a decade ago was a claim of statutory rape.

The woman is 27 now. In 1996, she told police that three males raped her three years earlier when she was 14. The police report listed the case as a statutory rape.

One of the males was her adult boyfriend, according to the woman's ex-husband.

Kenneth McNeil, a Durham man who was married to the woman for 17 months, said in an interview Friday that three years after the incident, he urged her to make the report to Creedmoor police to help her overcome the trauma.

"I wanted them to pay for what they did," said McNeil, who was then engaged to the woman.

Under state law, a 14-year-old cannot give consent to have sex with an adult who is not his or her spouse. Certain exceptions are made depending on the difference in age.

The Creedmoor Police Department did not pursue the case, and no charges were filed.

Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong said in a prepared statement Friday that the report has little bearing on his case against two Duke lacrosse players charged with raping the woman at a team party in March. Nifong has said he might charge a third player.

Nifong said that the Creedmoor case may be hidden from a jury under the state's rape shield law, which generally excludes a victim's sexual history and behavior from court.

"The jury that decides this case may or may not hear the 'evidence,' " Nifong wrote. "For the sake of the victim, for the sake of the accused, for the sake of our system of justice, I encourage everyone to step back from this situation and allow that system to do its job."

On April 18, Duke lacrosse players Collin Finnerty, 19, and Reade William Seligmann, 20, were arrested and charged with first-degree rape, first degree sex offense and kidnapping. They are accused of sexually assaulting the woman, who was hired through an escort service to dance at a March 13 spring break party at a house shared by three of the team's captains.

On Friday, Finnerty's attorneys filed a request for evidence that investigators have collected in the case. Like a similar filing made earlier by Seligmann's attorney, the document included a request for information on any inconsistent statements made by potential witnesses.

The filing by Seligmann's attorney stated that the woman's account is the only eyewitness testimony that links Seligmann to the case and that records of her past could "provide rich sources of information for impeaching the complaining witness."

Efforts to reach defense lawyers in the case were unsuccessful Friday.

The investigation into the reported rape at the lacrosse team party has drawn national media attention and incited bitter debate over who is telling the truth: the more than 40 members of the team who say no sexual assault occurred or the woman, now a single mother and student at N.C. Central University.

It is News & Observer policy not to disclose the name of people who report they were sexually assaulted. The accuser could not be reached Friday.

McNeil said that before he married the accuser in 1997, the woman told him about rape and torture at the hands of a previous boyfriend, a man who was at least seven years older than she.

The accuser was in high school when she met the man, McNeil said. He was controlling, jealous and abusive, McNeil said. He would beat her, and she would hide the bruises from her parents.

On a day in June 1993, the man offered up his young girlfriend's body to his friends, McNeil said she told him. "He let his boys take turns," McNeil said.