Murderous stripper at center of Duke lacrosse rape scandal finally admits she made it all up, begs for forgiveness
After 18 years, Crystal Mangum came clean about the lie that turned three men's lives upside down.
A North Carolina Central University student who moonlighted as a stripper falsely accused members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team — David Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann — in 2006 of rape and kidnapping, derailing their lives.
Although the trio were exonerated, their accuser, Crystal Mangum — who faced no accountability for her allegations — refused to correct the record. After 18 years, Mangum, now a convicted murderer, has finally admitted that she made it all up.
"The Bible says you shouldn't do harm to your neighbors that live trustingly beside you," Mangum said in a recent interview with Katerena DePasquale of "Let's Talk with Kat." "They were my brothers, and they trusted me — that I wouldn't betray their trust — and I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn't. And that was wrong."
In the wake of Mangum's accusations about a supposed incident on March 13, 2006, there were vigils and protests; campus chants of "hey, hey, ho, ho ... all rape has got to go"; and demands at other institutions for a change to a "culture that tacitly condones sexual violence."
The liberal media feasted upon the scandal, blasting Duke students' supposed "white privilege," denouncing the "thuggish tendencies" of lacrosse players, and in many cases playing up the supposed race angle. Not only were the accused white and the accuser black, but Mangum told authorities that members of the lacrosse team also taunted her with racial epithets.
The Guardian's Washington correspondent, for instance, wrote, "It had all the ugliness of the Old South in an institution that prides itself on being a pillar of the New South: a brutal collision of race, sex, and class at one of America's most prestigious universities."
Worried about significant reputational damage, then-Duke President Richard Brodhead formed a council of advisers and multiple committees to examine the lacrosse team, the university's response to the incident, and campus culture. The Duke lacrosse team ultimately suspended its season.
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