Ex-Lacrosse Players Sue Over False Rape Charges

Oct 06, 07:19 AM

Current Headlines: By AARON BEARD

By Aaron Beard

The Associated Press

GREENSBORO, N.C.

Three former Duke lacrosse players falsely accused of rape filed a sweeping federal lawsuit Friday that could return the sensational case to a courtroom, suing disgraced prosecutor Mike Nifong, the city of Durham and the police detectives who handled the investigation.

The lawsuit calls the criminal case against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans "one of the most chilling episodes of premeditated police, prosecutorial and scientific misconduct in modern American history."

It seeks unspecified damages and numerous reforms to the way the Durham Police Department handles criminal investigations - including the appointment of a monitor who would have the power to hire, fire and promote department employees, including the chief, for 10 years.

The suit was filed about a month after city officials met with lawyers for the families seeking a $30 million settlement and several legal reforms, two people close to the case have told The Associated Press.

Apparently unable, or unwilling, to reach a deal with the families, the city pledged Friday to defend itself and its employees, but not Nifong - who held a state office - or the private DNA testing lab he hired.

City spokeswoman Beverly B. Thompson said the players' complaint "asserts claims against the city and its employees that appear to be based on untested and unproven legal theories."

Should the case go to trial, it would extend a legal debacle that began in March 2006, when a woman hired to perform as a stripper at a lacrosse team party told police she had been raped.

The criminal side of the case largely ended in April, when North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper declared the three players innocent victims of Nifong's "tragic rush to accuse." In dropping the charges, Cooper said the state's investigation found nothing to corroborate the accuser's story.

Nifong did not immediately return a message Friday seeking comment.

Along with Nifong, the lawsuit names 13 other individual defendants, including former Police Chief Steven Chalmers, police investigators Benjamin Himan and Mark Gottlieb, and Brian Meehan, the director of DNA Security Inc., the private lab that conducted the DNA testing that helped unravel the case. Nifong withheld that evidence from defense attorneys for months.

The lawsuit also names Meehan's lab as a defendant, but it does not name the accuser.

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