When Durham police and prosecutors asked a judge for permission to collect photos and DNA from 46 Duke University lacrosse players, they said a woman had reported being beaten, choked and gang-raped at a team party.

But defense lawyers said in a court filing Thursday that police had a medical examination of the woman that revealed only a small scratch on her knee, a small cut on her heel and vaginal swelling. The lawyers suggested these injuries could be explained by the woman's activities in the days before the party where she said she was raped.

The accuser, an escort service dancer, spent the weekend going from an appointment at a North Raleigh hotel to a Hillsborough strip club to a hotel near Duke to one in downtown Raleigh, according to the filings. The string of assignations ended at the Monday-night party.

Attorneys for lacrosse player Reade Seligmann asked a judge to throw out the photo lineup in which the woman identified Seligmann and two other players as her assailants. The lawyers, Kirk Osborn of Chapel Hill and Ernest Conners of Greenville, said police withheld evidence undercutting the allegations in presenting their case to the judge.

The woman said she was raped by three men at a March 13 party that went into the early hours of March 14 at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. Three players have been arrested and charged with first degree rape, sexual offense and kidnapping: David Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md.; Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y.; and Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J.

District Attorney Mike Nifong and lead police investigator Benjamin Himan did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday.

The case first gained attention in late March after prosecutors took a sworn statement from Himan and asked a judge to order the team's 46 white players to give DNA and sit for photographs.

The accuser reported being hit, kicked and strangled, Himan wrote. He said medical records and interviews showed symptoms and injuries consistent with being raped vaginally and anally.

On Thursday, Seligmann's lawyers submitted a sworn statement describing parts of the medical examination and filed 23 pages of medical records under seal. The lawyers said they filed the records privately out of caution that they not violate the accuser's privacy rights, but they also asked that a judge make the records public.

The lawyers argued that the records Nifong gave defense lawyers undercut Himan's claims:

* The accuser told the examining nurse she was not choked.

* The only physical trauma found by the nurse, who was in training, was the scratch and cut.

* The accuser told two doctors that she was assaulted vaginally and mentioned no other assault. She denied being hit.

* The nurse's pelvic examination found swelling in the vagina but no other injuries.

* The nurse made no conclusions or opinions about rape or sexual assault in her report.

Nurses generally do not make such conclusions, said Debbie Flowers, an assistant supervisor at UNC Hospitals.

Seligmann's attorneys argued that the woman's activities before the party explain the swelling.

The woman told police that during the weekend before she had an appointment with a couple at a hotel where she used a sex toy on herself.

Her driver, Jarriel Johnson of Raleigh, gave police a handwritten sworn statement on April 6 that detailed his time with her.

Two days before the party, Johnson said he drove the woman to an hourlong appointment at the Holiday Inn Express in Wakefield. At 11 p.m., Johnson said, he drove her to Platinum, a strip club in Hillsborough. The woman twice asked him to stay another hour, he wrote. At 4:30 a.m., Johnson said, he drove her to an hourlong job at the Millennium Hotel near Duke University.

The next night, Johnson said, he drove her to Raleigh "to find this guy she met." They checked into a hotel near Lane Street, bought Chinese food and waited for the man to call. Johnson said he left at midnight. When he came back the next morning, Johnson said, he waited in his car while the accuser performed for an older man in the hotel room.

Later that day, Johnson said, he was taking the accuser to her parents' house in Durham when she asked him to stop so she could go to the bathroom. "She got out of the car and started walking down Creedmoor Rd.," Johnson wrote. "I pulled my car over and got out to chase her down. She told me to leave her alone."

Johnson said he asked several times before she climbed back in the car. The two reached Johnson's home about 4:30 p.m.

Johnson said he wasn't able to drive that evening; the accuser told Johnson that another friend, Brian Taylor of Durham, would drive her to a bachelor party in Durham, the lacrosse party.