Grand Jury Indicts Third Player in Duke Lacrosse Case
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DURHAM, N.C. (AP) – A grand jury indicted a third member of Duke University’s lacrosse team Monday on charges stemming from a woman’s allegations she was raped and beaten at a team party earlier this year. Two other players, one from New Jersey and one from Long Island, were indicted on the same charges last month.
David Evans, a 23-year-old senior and team co-captain from Bethesda, Md., was indicted Monday on charges of first-degree forcible rape, sexual offense and kidnapping.
Evans’ attorney, Joseph Cheshire, didn’t immediately comment on the indictment but told reporters to be outside the Durham County magistrate’s office Monday afternoon.
That’s where sophomores Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y., turned themselves in last month following their indictments. Seligmann is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday.
The charges against the three followed a March 13 party at an off-campus house, where a 27-year-old black student at nearby North Carolina Central University told police she was raped and beaten by three white men after she and another woman were hired as strippers.
Evans, who in the past had been cited for a noise ordinance violation and alcohol possession, lived at the house where the party was held.
Defense attorneys have insisted all the players are innocent and have cited DNA tests they say found no conclusive match between any of the team’s white players and the accuser.
The allegations against the players led to protests in Durham and drew criticism from national civil rights activists, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who said last month that his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition would pay the woman’s college tuition.
Duke canceled the rest of the lacrosse team’s season and accept the resignation of coach Mike Pressler. Duke President Richard Brodhead also initiated a series of internal investigations, one of which concluded administrators were slow to react to the scandal in part because of initial doubts about the accuser’s credibility.
At Duke’s graduation ceremony over the weekend, some graduates wore Seligmann’s and Finnerty’s lacrosse jersey numbers on their mortarboard caps. Provost Peter Lange blamed the “sad events and relentless media coverage” of the case for tarnishing the school’s image.
