Duke Lacrosse Rape Case

In March 2006 three white Duke University lacrosse players were accused of the brutal rape of a Black college student who had been hired to perform as an exotic dancer at a team party. The case made national and global headlines and dominated cable news. A year later the attorney general of North Carolina declared the players innocent and the district attorney who brought the case a “rogue prosecutor.” The woman who leveled the accusation admitted in 2024 that she had made it up.

More than two decades later the phrase Duke lacrosse is still likely to stir heated debate about race, privilege, sex, and inherent bias. Here is a look at a case that became a Rorschach test for a nation in the early 21st century.

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Five stories of the wrongfully accused: The Duke Lacrosse team

The accusation

There are some elements of the case that are not in dispute. On March 13, 2006, members of the nationally ranked Duke men’s lacrosse team held a party at a university-owned house that was located off campus. The team hired two women to act as strippers at the party. One of the women was 27-year-old Crystal Mangum, a student at North Carolina Central University, a historically Black university in Durham, North Carolina. She left the party early, apparently intoxicated, and was the subject of racist taunts from the players at the house.

Mangum, whose name was not initially made public in keeping with the practice of protecting the identities of victims of sexual assault, told a horrific story of a 30-minute assault in a bathroom at the hands of three white players. The case almost immediately made headlines, and Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong became the public face of the case, saying in a nationally televised press conference, “There’s no doubt in my mind that she was raped and assaulted at this location.” He would later describe “the combination ganglike rape activity accompanied by the racial slurs and general racial hostility.” Many believed that Nifong’s actions were prompted, at least in part, by political ambition.

DNA samples were taken from 46 members of the team who were at the party, and in spring 2006 three players—Reade W. Seligmann, David F. Evans, and Collin Finnerty—were indicted on charges of rape. Duke University, facing protests and public outcry, announced the cancellation of the rest of the lacrosse team’s games. In the early days of the investigation, university president Richard Brodhead, although noting that no one had yet been charged, said, “If the things alleged are verified, they’re outrageous.” In a part of the country where the rape of Black women by white men had historically gone largely unpunished, there seemed to be a commitment not to allow history to repeat itself.

Problems with the case

But soon, the case began to unravel in a witch’s brew of an ultimately unreliable accuser, dubious police procedures, and a lack of forensic evidence.

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• Mangum’s account of her attack was stark, detailed, and haunting. But her telling of the attack changed over time, including key elements of the attack itself.
• The DNA evidence, which Nifong said would identify the attackers, came back with no matches.
• Time-stamped photos provided by the defense called into question the timeline of the attack.
• The photo lineup from which Mangum identified Seligmann, Evans, and Finnerty featured only Duke players; standard police procedure is to include photos of people unrelated to the case.

Meanwhile, the sentiment on campus and in North Carolina had begun to change, with legal analysts and members of the public wondering why the case was being pursued. On campus, a conservative student newspaper columnist named Stephen Miller stridently questioned who the real victims were in the case, writing in August 2006:

If you find yourself in the presence of a student who insists the lacrosse players are a bunch of racist criminals and that the players are guilty no matter what the evidence says—put them in their place. If you don’t, I will.

The exoneration

In January 2007 a now deeply embattled Nifong called in North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper to reinvestigate the case. Cooper and a team of lawyers and investigators spent 12 weeks reviewing the evidence, procedures, and decisions. On April 11, 2007, Cooper held a press conference in which he cleared Seligmann, Evans, and Finnerty. He noted that Mangum’s changing story was particularly problematic, saying:

Our investigation shows that the eyewitness identification procedures were faulty and unreliable. No DNA confirms the accuser’s story. No other witness confirms her story. Other evidence contradicts her story. She contradicts herself.

But Cooper said no charges would be brought against Mangum, in part because investigators determined “she may actually believe the many different stories that she has been telling.” He also proposed a new law that would allow the North Carolina Supreme Court to remove prosecutors from cases in limited circumstances, adding that “this case shows the enormous consequences of overreaching by a prosecutor.” He noted that the North Carolina State Bar was reviewing Nifong’s role in the case.

Where are they now?

• The players: Duke University settled a civil lawsuit brought by the players, paying each of them a reported $20 million. Only David Evans graduated from Duke. He got an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and works in finance in New York City. Reade Seligmann transferred to Brown University and went on to become a lawyer. He was recognized by the Innocence Project for his work on eyewitness identification reform. Collin Finnerty transferred to Loyola University of Maryland, where he continued to play lacrosse. He earned an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and works in investment banking.
• The accuser: Crystal Mangum had led a troubled life long before that March evening in 2006. She had previously accused three men of raping her when she was 14, had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and had attempted suicide. In 2013 she was convicted of manslaughter in the stabbing death of her boyfriend. She said she killed him in self-defense. She was sentenced to prison and released in 2026. In 2024 she admitted to making up the rape allegation and asked for forgiveness from Evans, Seligmann, and Finnerty, saying, “They didn’t deserve that.”
• The prosecutor: In June 2007 Michael Nifong was disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar. The attorney who led the review, F. Lane Williamson, said, “We had a prosecutor who was faced with a very unusual situation in which the confluence of his self-interest collided with a very volatile mix of race, sex, and class.” He said the bar association determined that “there is no discipline short of disbarment that would be appropriate in this case.”
• The attorney general: Roy Cooper, who oversaw the investigation that cleared the players, went on to serve two terms as the Democratic governor of North Carolina, from 2017 to 2025. He is running for the U.S. Senate in the 2026 midterm elections.
• The columnist: After graduating from Duke in 2007, Stephen Miller went into Republican politics. As of 2026 he was the deputy chief of staff for Pres. Donald Trump.