Suspects, dancer contradict accuser

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CORRECTION

A box accompanying an Oct. 16 story on the CBS "60 Minutes" show about the Duke University lacrosse case incorrectly implied that a series of interviews given by Kim Roberts in the spring included ABC's "Good Morning America." In its piece on the subject, the ABC show used a video clip of Roberts speaking in a previous interview with The Associated Press.

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The three players indicted in the Duke lacrosse rape case told "60 Minutes" reporter Ed Bradley that the charges against them were an outrageous injustice, lies that were destroying their lives.

In the segment that aired Sunday night, Kim Roberts, the woman known as the second dancer in the lacrosse case, also disputed statements the accuser made to police.

Nearly six months have passed since Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann were charged with gang-raping a woman hired through an escort service to dance at a lacrosse team party that started March 13 and broke up early March 14.

The "60 Minutes" segment is the first time Finnerty and Seligmann have spoken publicly about the case.

Evans spoke outside the Durham County jail in May on the day he was charged.

"Your whole life, you try to, you know, stay on the right path, and to do the right things," Seligmann told Bradley. "And someone can come along and take it all away, just by going like that," he said pointing his finger. "Just by pointing their finger, that's all it takes."

The case grabbed the attention of the national media almost immediately.

"Our interest can best be summarized by what Ed Bradley said in the opening lines," said Kevin Tedesco, a spokesman for "60 Minutes."

"When three members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team were indicted for rape last spring, the case put one of the country's most prominent colleges under intense scrutiny, and it pushed onto a national stage divisive issues of race, gender, politics and privilege," Bradley said in the opening segment. "The three players are white and come from wealthy families." The accuser is black and at the time of the party, was a student at N.C. Central University, a historically black college that is part of the public University of North Carolina system.

Bradley said the evidence revealed disturbing facts about the conduct of the police and District Attorney Mike Nifong and raised serious concerns about whether a rape occurred.

Comments, criticism

During the segment, James Coleman, a Duke University law professor, said he thought Nifong had committed prosecutorial misconduct by speaking out before charges were filed.

"If this case resulted in a conviction, I think there would be a basis to have the conviction thrown out based on misconduct," Coleman said.

Toward the end of the segment, there was video footage of the accuser dancing in a strip club. Bradley said the footage was taken nearly two weeks after the alleged incident occurred, not long after the accuser had been to UNC Hospitals complaining of back pain from the incident.

Although the "60 Minutes" segment showed the accused speaking at length for the first time since the indictments, little new evidence was revealed.

"I never expected anyone to get indicted, let alone myself," Finnerty said. "It's changed my life, no matter what happens from here on out. It's probably going to be something that defines my whole life."

Seligmann said neither investigators from the prosecutor's office nor police have questioned him about that night.

The police lineup, he said, "felt like Russian roulette. It could have been any single one of us. Kids were even calculating their chances ... the percentage ... that you would get picked."

"To see my face on TV, and that, you know, in those little mug shots, and above it saying, you know, 'Alleged rapists.' You don't know what that does to me and to my family and to the people that care about me," Seligmann said.

Roberts, who has emerged as an important witness in the investigation, is the only person other than the accuser and the players who can account for events in the house that night.

Bradley asked Roberts about a statement the accuser made in which she said three lacrosse players separated the dancers and took the accuser into a bathroom to rape her.

"Were you holding on to each other?" Bradley asked. "Were you pulled apart?"

"Nope," Roberts said.

Roberts also says she didn't go into the bathroom and help one of the accused dress the accuser, as the accuser wrote in a statement.

The accuser has given numerous accounts of what happened that night.

"This woman has destroyed everything I worked for in my life," Evans, a team captain who graduated last spring, told Bradley. "She's put it on hold. She's destroyed two other families, and she's brought shame on a great university.

"Worst of all, she's split apart a community and a nation on facts that just didn't happen and a lie that should have never been told."