Former stripper Crystal Mangum has admitted that she lied about three Duke University lacrosse raping her in 2006, nearly 20 years after making the allegations against them. Mangum made the confession during an appearance on the 'Let's Talk with Kat' podcast.
Summary
Crystal Mangum, who accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape in 2006, admitted for the first time on a podcast that her claims were fabricated.
She said she lied for validation and apologized to Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans, acknowledging they “didn’t deserve” the accusations.
The case, which drew national attention, collapsed after evidence disproved her story, leading to the disbarment of Durham DA Mike Nifong for misconduct.
Mangum is currently in prison for a 2011 murder conviction.
No harm, no foul, right? It's not like the accusations by themselves did any damage to the players' mental health, social lives or had any effect on their education. Those reports of vandalism to Duke property and death threats to staff must've been fabricated too.
As much as I'd like the justice of having her prison sentence extended by the length of time each player would have been facing, I don't think it's a good idea in general. Wouldn't want to discourage survivors of rape from coming forward with legitimate accusations due to fear of repercussions if the evidence is not sufficient to convict their attacker. Lots of things can go wrong between the crime scene and court room, guilty parties don't always end up where they belong.
You gotta figure she probably wasn't facing the typical modern human challenges of having to wake up in the morning and so on. I mean, those are extra credit activities.
I certainly remember the case, but I don't remember how much consensus there was afterward that her story was sketchy and likely untrue. Obviously there would be people who believed her no matter what, and others who would believe the Duke students. But I vaguely remember that the balance of evidence tipped away from the women's stories.
This is definitely a case of a lie travelling around the world before the truth has put in its shoes. Personally, I only heard the story of the lacrosse players (allegedly) raping her and charges being dropped.
I, like many others, assumed the charges were dropped because wealthy kids had good connections. I never recall hearing that the story was made up, until now. Poor kids.
Some of these comments demonstrate the tech-bro male dominated culture of lemmy and those people should be ashamed of themselves and piss off back to Reddit. I don't want any rancid basement dwelling men in my replies either - I will not debate you. I will just block you.