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."

Defense Attorney Clash with Prosecution's Investigator

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.

Cheshire told reporters yesterday that at one point, the accuser said five, not three, men had assaulted her in the bathroom of 610 North Buchanan Blvd. He released the document after Linwood Wilson, an investigator for the prosecution, publicly criticized the idea that she had changed her story.

"Oh really. Well I'd like to see that page," Wilson said loudly to Cheshire in a hallway of the Durham County Courthouse.

Officer Sutton described the accuser as "crying…she seemed very nervous." He also recounted that she told him "her vagina was sore and she was bleeding."

Impact on the Case?

Attorneys for the three indicted players have already suggested they would use the accuser's changing story against her in the "he said, she said" battle of a rape trial.

"It sounds like something the defense will certainly use in court, because it's going to come down to who the jury believes," said Durham criminal defense attorney Dionne Gonder.

The fact that the accuser gave more than one version of what happened could be used to impeach her credibility, "particularly when she is cross-examined by defense attorneys," Gonder said.

Still, prosecutors and advocates for the accuser could argue that in a state of trauma and confusion, the victim of an alleged rape might slip on some details of the event. Ultimately, even her giving more than one description of events may not kill the prosecutor's case.

"Nothing's ever that clear cut when you're dealing with a criminal case," Gonder told ABC News.