Defense lawyers said Monday that DNA tests prove Duke University lacrosse players did not rape a woman hired to strip at a team party, but the district attorney said he remains intent on building his case.

The developments, played out in and around the Durham courthouse late in the afternoon, set the stage for a standoff between District Attorney Mike Nifong, who goes before voters in a primary in 22 days, and a dozen lawyers who have argued in the news media that their clients did not assault anyone at the party last month.

The state crime lab sent the DNA test results to Durham by fax about 4 p.m., and about two hours later, lawyers representing the 46 team members ordered to provide cheek swabs for testing gathered on the courthouse steps.

"There is no evidence other than the word of this one complaining person that any rape or sexual assault took place," said Joseph B. Cheshire V, a Raleigh attorney who represents one of the four team captains.

Cheshire said that no DNA from any players was found on or in the woman, who said she was strangled, sodomized and raped during a drunken party at a house across from campus on a spring break Monday night.

A judge last month ordered the testing. The only player not tested was the team's only black member; the accuser, who is black, said her three attackers were white.

Lawyer Wade Smith said Monday evening that the results should end the investigation. "There was no sex assault," Smith said.

Nifong said the DNA results do not end anything.

"I'm not saying it's over. If that's what they expect, they will be sadly disappointed," Nifong said Monday night. "They can say anything they want, but I'm still in the middle of my investigation. ... I believe a sexual assault took place."

Neither Nifong nor the players' attorneys would release results.

Nifong said he remains confident in the woman's story: that she was hired to dance at the party, which began March 13, and was sexually assaulted in a bathroom. Police later found four of her red fingernails in the house. A nurse and doctor examined the woman, according to a police affidavit used to obtain a search warrant. Medical records and interviews revealed "signs, symptoms and injuries consistent with being raped and sexually assaulted vaginally and anally," the affidavit said.

The players' attorneys, at their news conference Monday, said the DNA evidence supports the players' story: that two women hired to dance at the party took $800 and left after a few minutes.

The tests, performed by State Bureau of Investigation experts, compared the players' DNA with material collected from the accuser and from towels and rugs seized by police March 16.

The results, the lawyers said, show that investigators collected no genetic material of any kind from the woman. "There was no DNA found in or on her that would indicate that she recently had any sex," Cheshire said.

Investigators found no DNA under the woman's remaining fingernails, or on those taken during the search of the rental house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., which Duke recently bought in an attempt to quell student parties.

They also found no DNA on the woman's clothing or belongings, players' attorneys said. The tests found DNA matches to two players, from a towel outside the bathroom and on another object, Cheshire said.

One sample was from a player's semen and another was a different type of DNA, Cheshire said. He said that was to be expected in a bathroom shared by the three men who lived in the house.

Nifong has said that any assailants might have used condoms. But Cheshire said the woman's body still would have borne traces of an attack. "Our experts tell us that gang rape by three men would leave material to be examined," he said.

The woman has remained hidden with friends to avoid reporters. It is The News & Observer's policy not to identify people who report they have been sexually assaulted.

The woman's father said in a telephone interview that he and other relatives learned of the test results through news reports. "It hasn't really sank in," he said.

He said that he believes his daughter, who is a student at N.C. Central University, and that he does not believe the test results will end the case. "I do still think there's a chance," he said.

The story of a black woman who said she was raped by white men attracted national attention and deepened the gulf between affluent Duke and the surrounding city. When news of the investigation broke, protests and vigils began on and off campus.

E-mail groups sprang up. Protesters banged pots, pans and drums outside the house. People passed out fliers bearing photographs of team members and demanded that they come forward.

"This has been an absolute nightmare for these young men, as well as their families," said Bill Thomas, a lawyer who represents one of the captains.

"It has been used to hurt their lives forever, and to tear this community apart," Cheshire said. "I would hope the community would embrace this report and understand why we've been talking about presumption of innocence and a rush to judgment."

Many may have judged the lacrosse players by the team's reputation of partying to excess. One third of the current players have been charged with misdemeanors related to drunken and disruptive activity. Court records show that such charges have been occurring for at least seven years.

The run of misbehavior reached a crescendo with the spring break party and the resulting rape allegations.

On Monday, about 20 minutes after the lawyers' press conference, Nifong walked into a downtown auditorium for a candidate forum. "There are two words that are no longer allowed in my office -- Duke and lacrosse," he told an acquaintance.

Asked whether the DNA tests hurt his case, Nifong said that cases are often won on eyewitness and victim testimony.

"The absence of DNA doesn't prove anything," Nifong said.

But the test results, the lawyers said, were clear.

"This report is a very dramatic report," Cheshire said. "This report shows that they're innocent."

(Staff writers Joseph Neff and Samiha Khanna contributed to this report.)