RALEIGH - In the early days of the Duke lacrosse case, Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong looked confidently into TV cameras and declared that a racially motivated gang rape had occurred.

But a principal investigator testifying Tuesday at an N.C. State Bar proceeding said Nifong met with investigators during the same period and expressed alarm over the lack of evidence.

"He said, to the effect, 'You know we're f--ed,' " investigator Benjamin Himan testified.

Himan was one of two witnesses called Tuesday on the opening day of the N.C. State Bar's trial-like proceeding on the charges against Nifong.

Nifong, who is battling ethical and professional misconduct charges that could cost him his law license, sat down with the lead investigators in the Duke lacrosse case March 27, 2006, according to Himan's testimony.

At that meeting -- 13 days after an escort service dancer said she had been sexually assaulted and 21 days before any charges were filed -- Nifong chided two Durham police investigators for the lack of evidence in a case that had put him in the national media spotlight.

The bar accused Nifong this winter of making inflammatory and prejudicial statements in the case, withholding favorable evidence from the defense and then lying about it to judges and court officials.

The proceeding, which is being held in the N.C. Court of Appeals building, is the first opportunity for the public to hear some of the evidence that might have been presented had the case gone to trial.

A three-member Disciplinary Hearing Commission panel selected by the State Bar and state elected officials sits as judge and jury in the proceeding, which could last into the weekend.

David Freedman, one of two Winston-Salem lawyers representing Nifong, said in his opening statement that the panel had not been convened to decide the merits of the sexual assault case built against three former Duke lacrosse players.

The case the bar panel is to decide, Freedman said, is whether Nifong, a district attorney in a contested election, intentionally withheld evidence and vilified the lacrosse players.

"I would contend to you that Mr. Nifong at no time committed any intentional violations of the bar," Freedman said.

Nifong, Freedman said, believed a crime had occurred at the team party and had a duty to proceed. "It is not unethical to pursue what someone may believe may be an unwinnable case."

But the testimony of Himan, a Durham police officer since 2002, raised questions about Nifong's zeal to prosecute.

Within days of the allegations being made public, Nifong gave dozens of TV interviews saying he did not want Durham to be regarded by the world as a place where lacrosse players could rape a young black woman.

Despite weaknesses that already were emerging in the case, he called the lacrosse players "hooligans" and gave a televised demonstration of a chokehold that could have been used in an assault.

Nifong, according to Himan, took charge of the investigation shortly after the news broke that 46 players had been called in for DNA testing.

Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, another investigator, told Himan "that if we were going to do anything, Mr. Nifong needed to know what we were going to do and to go through him."

Nifong pushed ahead with a case in which there was no DNA evidence to connect the lacrosse players to Crystal Gail Mangum, the accuser in the case.

Nifong knew in late March 2006 about the many inconsistencies in Mangum's story, Himan said, but told investigators to push ahead. Himan said Nifong knew that Mangum had not been able to identify any attackers in two photo lineups, so he coached the investigators on how to run an April 4, 2006, photo lineup that included only lacrosse players -- an identification procedure that violated Durham Police Department policy.

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