Duke Lacrosse Accuser Tells a Different Story in Police Report

June 23, 2006 — -- Duke rape investigation prosecutor Mike Nifong yesterday gave defense attorneys more than 500 pages of discovery materials.

One of those pages -- a police report dated at 1:22 a.m. the night of the alleged rape -- shows the accuser telling a different story than what has been reported about what happened at the now-infamous lacrosse party.

According to the police report, the accuser, a college student and exotic dancer, told investigators she performed with three other dancers for a group of roughly 20 men. Later that evening, she told police, she was raped in the bathroom by "five guys who forced her to have intercourse and perform sexual acts," according to the police report.

This differs from the sequence of events she described to a hospital nurse who examined her later that morning, made public in police affidavits. In that account, she told the nurse that there were only two dancers at the party -- she and a woman she called "Nikki," who later revealed herself as Kim Roberts.

The accuser later came forward in a series of press interviews and said that there were only three men in the bathroom who assaulted her.

In a police lineup, the accuser identified those three men as Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans. The three men were subsequently indicted and are awaiting trial on charges of rape, assault and sexual offense. Defense attorneys have criticized the procedures used in that lineup and asserted that previous lineups had been conducted with different results.

Another revelation from the police document is the accuser's description of the second dancer's behavior at the party.

"Nikki wanted her [the accuser] to have sex with one of the guys and tried to talk her into it," the police report states. "Nikki wanted her [the accuser] to come into the bathroom with her and the guys."

The police report also says: "She [the accuser] also said Nikki had stole her money and cell phone."

Today's document, filed by reporting officer G. D. Sutton, was released today by Durham defense attorney Joe Cheshire. Cheshire represents Evans, the indicted lacrosse team captain who lived at the house where the party took place before he graduated from Duke in May.