The Duke Lacrosse Assault Case Sees Nifong Facing Ethics Charges

Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, undone by flip-flopping witness statements from woman hired as a stripper and dogged by allegations that he made inflammatory statements to the media, asked Attorney General Roy Cooper's office to appoint a special prosecutor.

The accuser in the Duke Lacrosse assault case had revised her previous statement again. She now believes that one of the former Lacrosse team players did not participate in the assault. She insisted he instead stood by and watched the other two former players, but did nothing himself. The charges of rape against the three former players accused of raping a woman at an off campus party have been dropped last month..

She identified Reade Seligmann as the player who was repeatedly urged to take part in the alleged attack. She told an investigator that he said he could not because he was getting married, the papers said. The new claims by the accuser were made in statements on December 21. In the same statement she acknowledge her inability to recollect the circumstances of her allegations as stated in March.

This lead to the decision to drop the rape charges against the three players after District Attorney Mike Nifong met with the accuser who was at the time pregnant and has since given birth to a girl earlier this month. The accuser felt she could not be certain she was raped at all. In video interview with the accuser of the Lacrosse players conducted earlier last month was sketchy at best when asked to pick the three men in a photo line up.

However, the case did not end with the dismissal of the rape charges alone, and does not end with the new recollections made by the accuser. The three players still face charges of sex crimes and kidnapping. If found guilty they each would faces as many as 25 years behind bars.