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Duke lacrosse program nears end of long road back

12:11 PM EST on Friday, February 23, 2007

Associated Press

Timeline of Duke case

March 13, 2006 -- Duke lacrosse players throw a team party at an off-campus house, hiring two strippers to perform.

March 14 -- One of the dancers tells Durham police three men at the party forced her into a bathroom, where they beat her, raped her and sodomized her. It is later learned she told authorities several different versions of the alleged attack in the hours after the party.

March 23 -- Forty-six of the team's 47 members comply with a judge's order to provide DNA samples and be photographed. The team's sole black member is not tested, because the victim said her attackers were white.

March 25 -- School announces lacrosse team will not play two scheduled games, citing the team's decision to hire "private party dancers" and underage drinking at the party.

March 28 -- Duke suspends lacrosse team from play until it has a "clearer resolution of the legal situation" involving team members.

March 29 -- In an interview with the News & Observer of Raleigh, District Attorney Mike Nifong calls the members of the lacrosse team "a bunch of hooligans."

April 3 -- Nifong stops granting interviews about the case.

April 4 -- The accuser identifies her attackers in a photo lineup suggested by Nifong. The defense later called the lineup "an incoherent mass of contradiction and error."

April 5 -- Lacrosse team coach Mike Pressler resigns. Duke President Richard Brodhead cancels the team's season after authorities unseal a search warrant containing an e-mail from player Ryan McFadyen in which he says he wants to kill and skin strippers. Although the context of the e-mail is not clear, McFadyen is suspended from school.

April 6 -- The accuser provides investigators with a five-page, handwritten statement detailing the alleged attack.

April 10 -- Defense attorneys announce DNA test results find no match between the players tested and the woman accusing the players of rape.

April 11 -- District Attorney Mike Nifong says he will continue investigating the rape allegations.

April 17 -- A Durham County grand jury returns sealed indictments against two Duke lacrosse players.

April 18 -- Duke lacrosse players Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty are taken into custody on charges of rape, sexual offense and kidnapping. Each is released after posting bond. Nifong says authorities are continuing to try to identify a third possible assailant.

April 25 -- Granville County authorities confirm the accuser told police 10 years ago she was raped by three men when she was 14. None of the men were charged.

May 1 -- A Duke University committee recommends the school's lacrosse team resume play next season, but adds the team needs strict monitoring because of a history of problems tied to alcohol.

May 2 -- Nifong fends off two challengers to win the Democratic primary for district attorney.

May 8 -- A university report concludes Duke administrators were slow to react to the scandal in part because of initial doubts about the accuser's credibility.

May 12 -- Defense attorneys say a second round of DNA testing finds no conclusive match between the accuser and any lacrosse players.

May 15 -- A grand jury indicts Duke men's lacrosse team co-captain David Evans. Evans speaks publicly before surrendering to police, saying, "You have all been told some fantastic lies, and I look forward to watching them unravel in the weeks to come."

June 5 -- Duke's president reinstates the men's lacrosse program for play in 2007, but under strict rules and close monitoring.

June 29 -- McFadyen, an unindicted player, is reinstated at Duke following his suspension for sending a vulgar e-mail about killing strippers.

July 21 -- Duke hires John Danowski from Hofstra to coach the lacrosse team. His son, Matt, is a Duke senior and All-American attackman for the Blue Devils.

Sept. 4 -- The lacrosse team returns to practice for the first time since March 27 for fall workouts.

Oct. 31 -- Nifong insists in an interview with The Associated Press that he and police have not mishandled the case and said his only regret was granting so many interviews early on.

Nov. 7 -- Nifong is elected to a four-year term as district attorney, beating out a write-in candidate and an unaffiliated candidate who did not actively campaign.

Dec. 15 -- The director of a private DNA lab testifies that, as part of an agreement with Nifong, he omitted from a May report the fact that no genetic material from any member of the lacrosse team was among that from several males found in the accuser's underwear and body.

Dec. 21 -- An investigator in Nifong's office interviews the accuser, during which she changes several key details of her account.

Dec. 22 -- Nifong drops rape charges against the three players, citing the accuser's statement from the day before in which she said she was no longer certain whether she was penetrated vaginally by a penis, a necessary element of rape charges in North Carolina. The players remain charged with kidnapping and sexual offense.

Dec. 28 -- The North Carolina bar files ethics charges against Nifong, accusing him of making misleading and inflammatory comments to the media about the athletes under suspicion.

Jan. 2, 2007 -- Nifong is sworn into office in a private ceremony.

Jan. 3 -- Duke invites Seligmann and Finnerty to return to school as students in good standing, saying the circumstances in the case have changed. The accuser gives birth to a girl at a hospital in Chapel Hill.

Jan. 4 -- Former Duke player Kyle Dowd and his parents sue the university, alleging that one of his professors unfairly gave him a failing grade because he was a member of the team.

Jan. 10 -- The judge overseeing the case orders a paternity test to determine the father of the accuser's child. Nifong and the defense agree the pregnancy is unrelated to the team party, but both sides agreed the test should be conducted to silence any doubts.

Jan. 11 -- Citing a prosecution report, the defense says in court papers the accuser told investigators during the Dec. 21 interview that Seligmann did not commit any sex act on her during the alleged attack, but was repeatedly urged to join in.

Jan. 12 -- Nifong asks the state attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor in the case, saying he worries the pending ethics charges might result in an unfair trial.

Jan. 13 -- State Attorney General Roy Cooper agrees to take over the case. "Agreeing to accept the prosecution of these cases doesn't guarantee a trial, nor does it guarantee a dismissal," Cooper said.

Jan. 24 -- The bar amends its ethics complaint against Nifong, accusing him of withholding evidence from the defense and lying to both to the court and bar investigators.

Feb. 24 -- Duke is scheduled to play Dartmouth in its first game in 11 months.

DURHAM, N.C. -- They've waited nearly a year for this, for the moment when "Duke lacrosse" will mean something other than what did or didn't happen last spring.

They know that for most, those words will always conjure memories of a party gone wrong, of strippers and a canceled season and allegations of rape. They know those words will forever stain the three former teammates still charged with sexual assault and kidnapping, as well as the veteran prosecutor who faces disbarment for what many call his reckless pursuit of those charges.

But not on Saturday. That's when "Duke lacrosse" will -- for the first time in a year -- be nothing more than the name of the home team, back on the field to start a new season against Dartmouth.

"If you're around the guys in the locker room, we don't take things as seriously or (feel) pressure that, 'We've got to win and if we don't, then people might associate us as guilty again,"' said senior Matt Danowski, a co-captain and son of new coach John Danowski.

"We're just out there playing lacrosse. We want to play Saturday because we haven't played in what feels like so long. We just want to turn the scoreboard on, blow the whistle and let's go."

In many ways, Saturday's return of Duke's lacrosse team will be a celebration. The players will run onto the field through an inflatable tunnel and past smoke machines. More than 60 reporters are expected to cover the nationally televised game, far more than the handful that might normally cover the team.

"It's going to be very unusual and really exciting," John Danowski said. "All those things combined make it something that I just don't know you can prepare for until you're in it."

Duke doesn't charge admission or sell tickets for lacrosse games, so it's not clear how many fans will come to 6,500-seat Koskinen Stadium. But that the school is expecting a big crowd, and not a collection of protesters, is a further testament to how much has changed for the lacrosse team since the alcohol-soaked team party on March 13 where a stripper said she was raped by three men in a bathroom.

In the days after the party, the players were constantly criticized for past behavior, which included a history of alcohol-related criminal charges. Protesters banged pots outside the house where the party took place and marched on campus. The highly ranked Blue Devils, coming off an appearance in the NCAA championship game, were 6-2 and a favorite to win the national title when the school placed their season on hold.

In early April, after a particularly nasty e-mail sent by a lacrosse player became public, the university canceled the rest of the season and accepted the resignation of longtime coach Mike Pressler. The players hired attorneys, who told them to remove Duke lacrosse stickers from their vehicles to keep them from being vandalized. They didn't wear Duke lacrosse T-shirts away from campus.

"To say I was ever ashamed to be a Duke lacrosse player would be completely false," said senior defenseman Tony McDevitt, who said his parents encouraged him not to be "all Duked out" in public. "But it hurts, no doubt about it. You get affected. You feel sort of the criticism all the time."

At the courthouse, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was calling the players "hooligans" used to having "expensive lawyers" get them out of trouble. He denounced what he called a "blue wall of silence," openly suggesting the team was refusing to cooperate with authorities as they investigated the rape allegations.

"There are obvious temptations to speak up for yourself like if anybody was saying anything bad about you," senior defenseman Casey Carroll said. "But we knew it was important ... to just let it work itself out."

In fact, the players were largely cooperating. They provided DNA samples that would later find no connection between any player tested and the 28-year-old accuser. Those negative DNA tests would become a harbinger of the troubled case against indicted players David Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty -- who have steadfastly maintained their innocence.

Today, there is hardly anyone left who believes prosecutors have enough evidence to win convictions, and public sentiment has turned almost entirely in the lacrosse players' favor.

Nifong was forced to drop rape charges in December after the accuser wavered in a key detail of her account. Less than a month later, Nifong turned the case over to the state attorney general's office after the state bar accused him of ethics violations -- including lying to the judge in charge of the case about the DNA testing.

State prosecutors have not yet said if they will take the three indicted players to trial, but the case against Nifong is moving forward and could end with his removal from the bar.

"You want people to know that you're innocent," Carroll said. "But we believed that the truth would come out and we just kind of relied on that and it's pretty much worked itself out, we think hopefully to the point where these guys get off finally."

Duke reinstated the program last June after an internal investigation, and the players all agreed to a new code of conduct that they wrote. In the past several months, the school has also become increasing critical of Nifong and has invited both Seligmann and Finnerty to return to the school in good standing. Both are looking at other schools; Evans graduated last year.

All three will be remembered Saturday, as Duke's players wear blue "Innocent" bracelets bearing their jersey numbers. But otherwise, the team is eager to put the past year to rest, and focus again on only playing lacrosse.

"Our objective this season is to move forward," senior co-captain Ed Douglas said. "We're not trying to focus on all that went down last year."