In a podcast this week, the woman who accused Duke University lacrosse players of gang-raping her in 2006 has admitted the she made it all up:
“I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong,” she told interviewer Katerena DePasquale on Nov. 13. “And I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me and made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.”
“And that was wrong.”
The case dominated national news for months. But as the months went by, the case against the lacrosse players unraveled. After the state bar association filed ethics charges against the prosecutor handling the case, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, accusing him of withholding evidence and making inflammatory statements, then-North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper took over. Nifong, who resigned, was eventually disbarred and held in criminal contempt for lying to a judge about the case.
Meanwhile, Mangum found herself once again entangled in the criminal justice system. In 2013, she was sentenced to up to 18 years for murdering her boyfriend two years earlier.
The Durham prosecutors absolutely should have taken Magnum's allegations seriously, and initially they did. But when Magnum's story started to fall apart, their emphasis needed to shift from winning a conviction to protecting the rights of the accused. Instead Nifong rode over the men's rights with a steamroller.
The Duke players won millions in settlements from the City of Durham, yet the accusations put them through unbelievable stress and pain for years. Not to mention, false accusations like this put other women at risk of not having their real accusations taken seriously.