Topic category:  Other/General

Truth be told, the Duke case involved a rape.

A gang rape.

None of the members of the 2005-2006 Duke University Men's Lacrosse Team participated.

Cartoonist Robert Arial (www.jewishworldreview.com/toons/arial/arial1.asp) is right: Lady Justice was raped and she knows who did it.

The cartoon depicts Lady Justice identifying to a portly, perplexed policeman her assailant: Durham County, North Carolina District Attorney Michael B. Nifong, depicted as peeking out from behind a slightly ajar office door.

Of course, he did not act alone.

He had enablers.

Remember that the Durham County District Attorney's Office represented to the court that DNA evidence would either implicate or exonerate the lacrosse players.

It implicated none.

It exonerated all.

But the Durham County District Attorney's Office proceeded to obtain indictments of Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans (aka the Duke Three) anyway and no one in the office resigned in protest.

Why?

NOT because there was other evidence.

NOT because false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum's history suggested that she was credible.

NOT because false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum passed a polygraph test.

NOT because false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum told a readily believable story.

NOT because false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum was consistent in telling her story.

NOT because false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum seemed credible to Mr. Nifong in telling one of the many versions of her story to Mr. Nifong.

BECAUSE false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum's story was exactly what Mr. Nifong thought he needed to suddenly become a hero to Durham County, North Carolina's Black community and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in a three-way Democrat with a white woman who would have won (former Assistant District Attorney Freda Black) and a black man who would have gotten many more Black votes but for the Duke case.

Mr. Nifong wanted that story to be true and avoided evidence that would demonstrate its falsity (indeed, its foolishness) like the plague.

NOT acceptable for a minister of justice duty-bound to be fair and objewctive.

Mr. Nifong would not meet with the late Kirk Osborn, Reade Seligmann's attorney, and examine bona fide alibi evidence, and should be disbarred for that alone.

Mr. Nifong was delighted that Collin Finnerty's equally bona fide alibi evidence was NOT made public, because that made it seem that false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum might have been right about something (since the presumption of innocence had been replaced by a presumption of guilt in the courtroom of public opinion).

Mr. Nifong must have jumped for joy when David Evans became the third "winner" of "the Crystal lottert," since he actually lived in the house, hosted the ill-advised party and used the small bathroom in which the gang-rape had supposedly occurred, so some of his DNA might be there.

BUT, no DNA from any lacrosse player was found in or on Crystal (even though multiple male DNA was found), because no lacrosse player raped her.

No lacrosse player physically mistreated false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum in any way, but she was about to be incarcerated for her own protection, so she cried rape.

Mr. Nifong was not the only one who wanted the rape story to be true. Susan Estrich confessed that she "went a little nuts." Much of the biased media did too.

But there was no there there, and there never would be.

The presence of multiple male DNA contradicted false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum's representations as to her recent sexual history.

The report of the private laboratory retained to do follow up DNA testing omitted that information from its report.

And when the defense could the underlying documentation that would show it if someone with sufficient knowledge took the time and trouble to study it, both Mr. Nifong and the lab's director, Dr. Brian Meehan, OPPOSED the motion.

Dr. Meehan later not only acknowledged that he agreed with Mr. Nifong to omit the information from his report, but that it was a violation of the lab's rules to do so and unprecedented.

Mr. Nifong's efforts to conceal the exculpatory evidence seem intentional. If you doubt it, check the record on the motion to compel the production of the underlying documentation, including the transcript of the September 22, 2006 hearing before Judge Osmond Smith.

September 22, 2006 was the critical date in the case: Judge Smith lifted the outrageously unconstitutional gag order issued on his own initiative by Judge Kenneth Titus and ordered the production of the underlying documentation.

It was downhill for Mr. Nifong from then.

Mr. Nifong was doomed.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper's statement announcing the dismissal of the remaining charges and the innocence of the Duke Three (and their unindicted teammates) was devastating for Mr. Nifong.

But General Cooper did NOT call for an investigation into those who enabled Mr. Nifong to be a rogue prosecutor (a term Stuart Taylor, Jr., America's top legal commentator, applied to Mr. Nifong in May of 2006).

Let's not pretend that Mr. Nifong was out-of-control and no one knew or knowingly helped him.

Congressman Walter Jones (Republican of North Carolina) was the first member of Congress to call for a federal investigation of the Duke case (Democrat presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama concurred) and recently renewed his call.

If United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales does not act now, he should be replaced and his successor surely should investigate.

North Carolina needs to reform its grand jury process and to staff its district attorney's offices and police departments with honorable people who will resist the temptation to help frame innocent people for whatever reason.

Also, the malicious myths about the members of the 2005-2006 Duke University Men's Lacrosse Team need to be dispelled. The politically correct crowd found it helpful to vilify them, just as Mr. Nifong found it politically advantageous to proceed as though false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum's story was true instead of trumped up.

Last December I received an email from an unindicted team member that not only reflects well on him and as teammates as well as those of us who have been writing about the travesty of justice that was the Duke case, but demonstrates that forty-three families of unindicted teammates were put through an outrageous ordeal by Mr. Nifong and his enablers and supporters (especially the ones connected to Duke University).

He wrote:

"I'd like to thank you for your comprehensive and exhaustive analysis of the Duke Lacrosse rape hoax. As a former member of the 2006 team, my family and I are fully invested in this case each and every day. Your work, along with several other heroes on their respective sites, has been helpful and comforting to read. I speak for the entire Duke Lacrosse family when I say thank you and please keep up the great work.

"My family and I are hopeful for a favorable outcome for my three friends' case and look to help out in any small way we can daily, whether it be fundraising, linking people to sites and articles like your own, or directly supporting Dave, Collin and Reade through emails, phone calls and visits....

"If there is ever anything I can do for you, please let me know.... I've learned much about the law already through the great people I am fortunate to work with and for. I hope to someday be in a position like you, helping others through my work."

We need to undo the damage done by those who created, facilitated and perpetuated the Hoax.

Everyone knows that the members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team described as "hos" by Don Imus not only are not "hos," but are accomplished and admirable young ladies.

Likewise, the members of the 2005-2006 Duke University Men's Lacrosse Team are accomplished and admirable young men who did not deserve what was done to them.

An emailer from Canada "gets" it:

"I'm just so mad at the moment.. and have been for awhile.. I just heard the basketball coach {Rutgers} comment on how courageous these girls were. COURAGE??? They don't know what courage is. COURAGE is those young men, falsely accused 'rapists & kidnappers' for over year on false accusations and being railroaded and still holding their heads high . THEY knew they were innocent. Just as the Rutgers team knows they aren't HO'S.... I would rather be called a 'HO' than a rapist. As for courage ... COURAGE is the young men over in Iraq & Afghanistan .. That's courage.. I used to think myself a feminist...but after all the injustices in the name of feminism, I quit. I'm just an angry Canadian nobody with a brain.... it's such a letdown that all this Imus stuff has overtaken what should be worldwide coverage of their being declared INNOCENT. Not just not enough evidence. I don't approve hiring strippers either but here's my take on the night."

The real victims of the Hoax deserve vindication and the real villains need to be identified and punished appropriately.

General Cooper gave false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum a pass.

An unindicted player thought that sent the wrong message: "CGM appears to be cleared of any potential prosecution.... The message I took from Cooper was that it's OK for women/strippers/prostitutes/criminals to make up a transparently-false rape claim and even if proven to be false, no punishment will occur. To top this off, most MSM will still not publish her name or photo-why? Is it fair to my three friends?"

Fair? You expect fair from the mainstream media?

General Cooper's explanation is that false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum may be delusional.

So she remains free from criminal prosecution and able to continue to claim victimhood.

I don't know whether she's deluded. If she passed a polygraqph test, then I'd believe she's deluded. If she won't take one, let her be prosecuted and let's find out whether she was criminally wrong. The players deserve that much (and much more).

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.