Two Duke University lacrosse players from tony towns in Long Island and New Jersey were charged yesterday in the savage and racially charged rape of a stripper during a drunken off-campus party.
Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, L.I., and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J., were indicted by a North Carolina grand jury on charges of forcible rape and kidnapping.
The pair “unlawfully, willfully and feloniously did ravish and carnally know” the victim “by force and against her will,” the indictment read.
District Attorney Mike Nifong would not discuss the evidence presented to the grand jury but said he hopes to charge a third man in the rape soon.
“It had been my hope 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 said in a written statement.
“Investigation into the identity of the third assailant will continue in the hope that he can also be identified with certainty,” he said.
Seligmann posted a $400,000 bond and his attorney waived a court appearance early yesterday morning. The 6-foot-1 sophomore was “absolutely innocent and we intend to show that sooner than later,” insisted his lawyer, Kirk Osborn.
When asked what evidence the grand jury had relied upon to charge his client, Osborn said he believed it was based on a “photographic identification” by the victim.
“We all know how reliable that is,” he added.
Finnerty, a 6-foot-3 sophomore, posted the same bail, and made a brief court appearance wearing a jacket and tie with his father by his side.
“We’re surprised that anybody got indicted, quite frankly,” said his attorney, Bill Cotter. “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.”
They’re both due back in court May 15.
The charges come amid a month of angry recriminations in the southern college town of Durham since the assault, which has heightened racial tensions in the community because the victim is black and her alleged attackers are white.
The case has also deepened the divide between local residents and the privileged youths who attend the university, widely regarded as the Ivy League of the South.
The victim told police she was raped, beaten and strangled by three men uttering racial epithets inside a bathroom at an off-campus party on March 13 where she and another woman were hired to strip by members of the lacrosse team.
Hours after the alleged assault, one of the team’s players sent out a graphic e-mail to team members in which he described killing strippers “to cut their skin off.”
The differences between the victim and her alleged assailants couldn’t be more stark: She is a 27-year-old mother of two who worked as a stripper to pay her way through college, while the top-level athletes were brought up in a life of privilege.
In Long Island, Finnerty attended the tony all-boys Chaminade HS in Garden City, a well-known incubator for Division 1 lacrosse players. Seligmann attended the posh Delbarton School in Morristown, N.J., which is also known for generating top-level players.
The Finnerty home is located in a section of Garden City lined with million-dollar homes. The sprawling, two-story, Victorian house overlooks the luxe Garden City Golf Club. In Essex Fells, the Seligmann home is a red-brick Georgian covered in ivy with an attached solarium.
No one answered the door at either house, but friends and neighbors rallied around both of the accused.
“We’re supporting him,” said Finnerty’s neighbor Ahmed Bendary, who tied a yellow ribbon around a tree outside his home in solidarity with the accused rapist.
“The whole neighborhood stands behind him. He’s a good kid. We believe he’s innocent,” he said, adding, “I would trust him with my own daughter.”
The incident and the perception that the Duke team was made up of uncontrolled ruffians resulted in the school canceling the remainder of the team’s season, and led to head coach Mike Pressler’s resignation.
School officials said Monday that Pressler had been warned last year that his players had too many violations of the campus judicial code and he needed to “get them in line.”
“Many lives have been touched by this case,” said Duke President Richard Brodhead. “It has brought pain and suffering to all involved, and it deeply challenges our ability to balance judgment with compassion. As the legal process unfolds, we must hope that it brings a speedy resolution and that the truth of the events is clarified.”
In the weeks prior to the filing of charges, it appeared the case was unraveling. DNA tests from 46 members of the team did not match samples taken from the victim. Witnesses then came forward saying the victim appeared heavily intoxicated and made no mention of an assault after it allegedly happened.
But Nifong – who was appointed to the job last year to fill a vacancy and is up for election in November – insisted he had enough evidence to proceed.
Attorneys representing other members of the lacrosse team said Seligmann and Finnerty had no contact with their accuser at all that night and were shocked that they had been charged.
“We always thought she’d pick out someone who at least had a conversation with her or paid her,” said Bill Thomas, an attorney for one of the team’s captains.
Another attorney, Robert Ekstrand, who represents several of the team’s players, said the two young men were not at the party “at the relevant time.”
The father of two other players said he was relieved that his sons were not charged, but was saddened to hear Finnerty and Seligmann were indicted.
“I’m sick to my stomach,” Brian Loftus told ABC TV’s “Good Morning America.”
“I was crying earlier today because those two kids’ lives are ruined. I mean totally ruined.”
Likewise, Seligmann’s neighbor in Essex Falls, Jim Fergusson, called the charges “bogus.”
“I know the family. It’s a shame. I think everything will come out in court.”
Delbarton’s headmaster said he strongly believed Seligmann was innocent.
“Knowing Reade Seligmann as well as we do here at Delbarton, I believe him innocent of the charges included in the indictment,” said the Rev. Luke L. Travers. “It is our hope and our conviction that the full truth of all that happened that night will vindicate Reade of these charges.”
Chaminade coach Jack Moran said he knew Finnerty well and that the young man would never be involved in such a violent attack.
“He’s been a great kid. He’s been respectful,” he said. “We have complete faith in the justice system.”
But some at the school said the lacrosse players there had a reputation for arrogance and rowdiness.
“The lacrosse guys sort of think that they’re better than everyone else,” said one junior, who declined to reveal his name.
One parent said that despite the rowdy reputation, she could never imagine it amounting to violence.
“I think the Chaminade lacrosse players definitely are a little arrogant, but I would never suspect anything like this to come from it. I just hope justice is done,” she said. With Post Wire Services