Two Duke Athletes Charged With Rape

Two Duke University lacrosse players were arrested and charged Tuesday with the rape of an exotic dancer, but defense attorneys quickly responded that they had evidence that the two students were not at the party when the assault is alleged to have happened.

Just before dawn, Reade William Seligmann, 20, and Collin H. Finnerty, 19, turned themselves in to Durham County Jail to face charges of first-degree rape, another forcible-sex offense and kidnapping. A grand jury had indicted the two players -- who are both sophomores -- on Monday.

But lawyers for the accused, and others in a phalanx of attorneys involved with the lacrosse team, went on the offensive.

“The grand jury only hears one side of the story,” said William J. Cotter, Finnerty’s attorney. “The next jury will hear the entire story, which includes our evidence, and we’re confident that these young men will be found to be innocent.”

Kerstin Walker Sutton, an attorney who represents a lacrosse player who was not charged, said that defense lawyers had collected evidence -- one player was captured on an ATM security camera and another had a restaurant receipt -- and found witnesses, including a taxi driver, to show the indicted men were not at the off-campus house where the attack was said to have taken place.

“The state’s going to be shocked,” she said. “We were hoping [the accuser] would pick men that we knew were not there, and she did. Now we’re ready for war.... The state has put itself in a situation that is going to be hard to get out of.”

From the beginning, the players’ lawyers have insisted there was no rape or sex at the party. This month, they said they had photographic evidence showing that the accuser was drunk and injured before the alleged rape took place.

Dist. Atty. Michael B. Nifong would not comment on the defense’s statements that the players charged Tuesday were not at the party.

Last week, defense attorneys urged Nifong to drop the case, citing crime lab results that showed no DNA evidence linking Duke players to the alleged rape.

But Nifong, who faces reelection next month, said he was convinced a sexual assault had taken place. He issued a statement Tuesday saying that he hoped to gather enough evidence to charge a third person in the case.

“It had been my hope to be able to charge all three of the assailants at the same time, but the evidence available to me at this moment does not permit that,” Nifong’s statement said. “It is important that we not only bring the assailants to justice, but also that we lift the cloud of suspicion from those team members who were not involved in the assault.”

Finnerty, of Garden City, N.Y., appeared in Durham’s Superior Court on Tuesday morning, accompanied by his father. He wore a navy blazer and tie, and his face was pale.

Seligmann, of Essex Fells, N.J., waived his court appearance. His lawyer, Kirk Osborn, described the charges against his client as “just mind-boggling.”

“It’s hard to find words to describe to you the unfairness, the miscarriage of justice, that they have charged my client,” Osborn said. “This kid is just an honorable kid. Never done anything wrong in his life. In my 32 years of experience, it’s hard to believe something like this could happen.”

In court documents, lacrosse team members who lived in the off-campus house where the party took place identified Seligmann as one of five members of the lacrosse team who did not attend the party. Osborn declined to comment on whether his client was present.

The case has raised uncomfortable issues of race and class in this Southern city, straining Duke students’ relationships with Durham residents.

The accuser, a 27-year-old single mother of two and a student at North Carolina Central University, is African American. The men charged, as well as 45 of the 46 members of the Duke lacrosse team, are white.

The woman was hired to perform an exotic dance at a party March 13. She says she was dragged into the bathroom of the house and was hit, kicked, choked and raped.

The players who have been charged with assault came to Durham from suburbs of New York City and attended private Catholic preparatory schools.

The mayor of Seligmann’s hometown, Essex Fells, vouched for his character.

“He’s a good man -- an outstanding young man,” said Mayor Ed Abbot, a longtime family friend who had coached Seligmann in lacrosse. “He’s always been a gentleman.”

Seligmann attended Delbarton, an independent college preparatory school for boys in Morristown, N.J., which is run by Roman Catholic Benedictine monks. In 2004, he was named to the U.S. Lacrosse Men’s Division High School All-America team.

The Rev. Luke L. Travers, Delbarton’s headmaster, issued a statement supporting Seligmann.

“Knowing Reade Seligmann as well as we do here at Delbarton, I believe him innocent of the charges included in the indictment issued yesterday in North Carolina,” the statement read. “It is our hope and our conviction that the full truth of all that happened that night will vindicate Reade of these charges.”

Finnerty went to Chaminade High School, an all-boy prep school on Long Island run by Marianist priests.

Tuesday was the second time in five months that Finnerty had been charged with a crime.

In November, he was arrested in Washington, D.C.

District of Columbia Superior Court records say that Finnerty and two companions -- a Georgetown University lacrosse player and a former player for Providence College in Rhode Island -- confronted a stranger and punched the man in the face and body when he asked them to stop calling him gay and derogatory names.

Finnerty is scheduled to appear in court on that charge in September. Under an arrangement with the court, charges against him would be dropped after he performed 25 hours of community service.

After meeting with defense lawyers for other Duke lacrosse players Tuesday, Sutton said they were committed to work together. “I think many of us -- including myself -- made serious efforts to work this out before it got to this stage,” she said. “But it has gotten to the point that these guys have been exposed to serious allegations that will follow them for the rest of their lives. They will always be part of ‘the Duke team that raped that girl’ -- even if cleared.”

Judge Ronald L. Stephens set May 15 as the next court appearance for both players.

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Times researcher Lynn Marshall in Seattle contributed to this report.