Crystal Mangum admits to lying about being raped by Duke lacrosse players in 2006.
Former outfielder and convicted murderer, Crystal Mangum, admitted to lying about being raped by Duke Lacrosse players in an interview with the independent media outlet “Let’s Talk With Kat” on Thursday.
“I gave false testimony telling them that they raped me and that is not right, I betrayed a lot of people who believed in me,” said Mangum. “[I] I made up a story that was not true because I wanted to be confirmed by people and not God.”
Mangum, who is serving time for the murder of her boyfriend, lied to three Duke players about raping her while performing at a team party in March 2006. The players she accused were arrested, sparking a nationwide controversy and talk of racism.
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Pictured in this August 2010 file photo, Crystal Mangum, who was at the center of the Duke University lacrosse scandal, has been charged with stabbing a man on April 3, 2011, at an apartment in Durham, NC. (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News Observer/MCT)
The three players, David Evans, Collin Finerty and Reade Seligmann, were all found not guilty of the charges. But Mangum was not prosecuted for perjury because of questions about his mental health.
“He probably believed a lot of different stories he was telling,” former North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said at the time.
Mangum cannot be prosecuted for perjury now because the statute of limitations on perjury charges in North Carolina is only two years.
These allegations even led the team to cancel the game against Georgetown in March 2008.
Former Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, who was the lead prosecutor in the case, said in a March 2006 interview with CBS News that “there’s no doubt that sexual harassment was going on,” and that it was “racially motivated.”
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM: AN ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE LOST DUKE
Crystal Gail Mangum appears at a news conference to promote a book about her life in Durham, North Carolina, Thursday, October 23, 2008. Mangum went on to say that she was beaten in March 2006 at a Duke lacrosse team event where she was employed. to dance. (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News Observer/MCT)
“The information I have makes me conclude that there is rape.” Nifong said. “Rape cases show a deep racial motivation in some of the acts. It makes the crime by its very nature one of the most violent and violent”
Nifong was later disbarred on June 16, 2007, by the North Carolina State Bar for perjury in court and withholding DNA evidence that ultimately acquitted the defendants of Mangum’s allegations.
Mangum also asserted that “something” happened that night in a book he published in 2008 titled “Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story.”
“I can’t say that nothing happened that night,” he wrote.
Mangum was charged with murder and two counts of fraud in March 2011. The year before that, he was convicted of disorderly conduct after setting a fire that nearly burned his home with his three children inside. Being videotaped by police, she told police that she got into an argument with her boyfriend at the time — not Daye — and burned her clothes, smashed her car window and threatened to stab him.
According to North Carolina Department of Corrections records, he was born on July 18, 1978, to a truck driver. He grew up as the youngest of three children, not far from the house where he said he was beaten in 2006.
In 1993, when she was 14 years old, Mangum said she was kidnapped by three men, who took her to a house in Creedmoor, NC, 15 miles from Durham, and raped her. She said one of these men was her boyfriend at the time, and he was a physically and mentally abusive man seven years older than her.
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Pictured in this August 2010 file photo, Crystal Mangum, who was at the center of the Duke University lacrosse scandal, has been charged with stabbing a man early Sunday, April 3, 2011, at an apartment in Durham, North Carolina. (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT)
Creedmoor Police Chief Ted Pollard said Mangum filed a report about the incident on August 18, 1996, three years after the child was raped. The case was not continued because the defendant withdrew because he feared for his life according to his relatives.
Vincent Clark, a friend who co-wrote Mangum’s self-published book, said he hopes people won’t rush to judgment — echoing one of the most often cited lessons from the lacrosse case itself.
Clark said Mangum recognizes that he has mental health issues.
“I feel bad for him. I hope people realize how hard it is to be him,” Clark said.
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