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DURHAM, N.C. -- Two Duke University lacrosse players were arrested early Tuesday on charges of raping and kidnapping a stripper hired to dance at an off-campus party, and the district attorney said he hopes to charge a third person soon.

The indictments, unsealed Tuesday, did not indicate what possible evidence or arguments led the grand jury Monday to indict Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty, both 20. District Attorney Mike Nifong would not discuss the evidence.

"It had been my hope to charge all three of the assailants at the same time, but the evidence available to me at this moment does not permit that," Nifong said. "Investigation into the identity of the third assailant will continue in the hope that he can also be identified with certainty."

Seligmann posted a $400,000 bond shortly after his arrest, and Finnerty was in the process of doing so for the same amount, said Col. George Naylor of the Durham County jail.

Earlier, Seligmann, a 6-foot-1 sophomore from Essex Fells, N.J., and Finnerty, a 6-foot-3 sophomore from Garden City, N.Y., were led out of a police cruiser in handcuffs, one wearing a tie and jacket, the other in a button-down shirt and jeans.

Seligmann is "absolutely innocent," said his attorney, Kirk Osborn. "He's doing great. That's all I have to say."

Asked what led to the indictments, Osborn said: "Apparently it was a photographic identification. And we all know how reliable that is."

Finnerty's attorney, Bill Cotter, said, "We're surprised that anybody got indicted, quite frankly."

"The next jury will hear the entire story, which includes our evidence, and we're confident that these young men will be found to be innocent," he said.

Calls to the Finnerty and Seligmann homes Tuesday morning were not immediately returned. No one answered the door at the Finnerty house, which sits in a cul-de-sac of million-dollar homes on Long Island. A lacrosse net and equipment could be seen in the yard, which abuts a golf course.

The alleged victim, a 27-year-old black woman and mother of two children, told police she was attacked March 13 by three white men in a bathroom at a party held by the lacrosse team.

The racially charged allegations have led to near daily protest rallies. The school canceled the highly ranked team's season and accepted the resignation of coach Mike Pressler after the release of a vulgar and graphic e-mail that was sent by a team member shortly after the alleged assault.

Defense attorneys have urged Nifong to drop the case, saying DNA tests failed to connect any of the 46 team members tested to the alleged victim.

But Nifong has argued that he has enough evidence to proceed. He has said 75 percent to 80 percent of rape prosecutions lack DNA evidence. According to court records, a medical examination of the woman found injuries consistent with rape.

Defense attorneys have said time-stamped photos taken the night of the party show that the alleged victim was injured and impaired before she arrived.

Nifong has declined to discuss the case. He was appointed to the job last year after nearly three decades as a lawyer in the district attorney's office and is up for election.

Brian Loftus, of Syossett, N.Y., the father of two players on the team, told ABC's Good Morning America in an interview broadcast Tuesday that he approached one of his sons and asked him about the alleged attack.

"I asked him ten times. I said, 'Did anything happen?' Both my sons ... all they ever told me was 'Dad, nothing happened. Nobody did anything,"' Loftus said.

School officials said Monday that the lacrosse coach was warned last year that his players had too many violations of the campus judicial code and he needed to "get them in line."

Duke athletic director Joe Alleva said the university's executive vice president reviewed the lacrosse team's disciplinary record last year, then discussed his findings with Alleva.

"He said there were too many incidents, but there's not enough incidents to make a drastic change in the program at this point in time," Alleva told he Herald-Sun of Durham. Alleva told the coach "his team was under the microscope, and he had to do everything he could to get them in line and to not have any more behavior problems."

The review by Tallman Trask III, Duke's executive vice president, was spurred by reports of "boorish behavior" by the lacrosse team, Alleva said.

Sue Wasiolek, Duke's dean of students and assistant vice president for student affairs, said the review showed the lacrosse team had a "disproportionate" number of violations of the campus judicial code. None was particularly serious, but administrators were concerned about the cumulative record and the fact that some players had several violations, she said.

AP NEWS
The Associated Press News Service

Copyright 2005-2006, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved

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Police search dorm rooms of two Duke lax players
DURHAM, N.C. -- Police searched the dorm rooms of two Duke University lacrosse players after the two were arrested on charges of raping and kidnapping an exotic dancer during an off-campus team party.

District Attorney Mike Nifong said Tuesday he also hoped to link a third man to the alleged attack soon, but he said that person had not been "identified with certainty.''

"It is important that we not only bring the assailants to justice, but also that we lift the cloud of suspicion from those team members who were not involved in the assault,'' Nifong said in a statement.

The accuser, a 27-year-old student at a nearby college, told police she was attacked by three white men at a house where she and another woman were hired to dance at a party of lacrosse team members the night of March 13.

Two team members -- Reade Seligmann, a sophomore from Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, a sophomore from Garden City, N.Y. -- were arrested early Tuesday. Each posted $400,000 bond and was released within hours.

Their lawyers assailed the district attorney for bringing the charges after DNA tests had failed to connect any of the team members to the alleged rape.

Seligmann is "absolutely innocent,'' said attorney Kirk Osborn. Finnerty's attorney, Bill Cotter, said, "We're confident that these young men will be found to be innocent.''

Nifong has declined to say what led to the charges or discuss evidence in the case. The dorm rooms were searched Tuesday night for about two hours, according to resident assistant Taggart White. The warrants had not been returned to the court clerk's or magistrate's office by midday Wednesday.

"I can imagine they never quit investigating, but I think it's unusual to be executing search warrants after they've indicted,'' Cotter said Wednesday.

The case has raised racial tensions and heightened the long-standing town-vs.-gown antagonism between Duke students and middle-class, racially mixed Durham. The accuser is black, and all but one of the 47 lacrosse team members are white.

Duke would not comment specifically on any disciplinary action taken against Seligmann and Finnerty, but said it is university practice to suspend students charged with a felony.

"Many lives have been touched by this case,'' Duke President Richard Brodhead said in a statement. "It has brought pain and suffering to all involved, and it deeply challenges our ability to balance judgment with compassion.''

Since the scandal broke, the university has canceled the team's season, its coach resigned and Duke officials said they were investigating the behavior of the nationally ranked team, some of whose members have been found guilty of public intoxication and public urination.

Neither Seligmann and Finnerty was among the team members arrested in recent years for such offenses as underage drinking and public urination.

Finnerty, however, was charged in Washington, D.C., with assault after a man told police in November that Finnerty and two friends punched him and called him "gay and other derogatory names.'' Finnerty agreed to community service.

Both Seligmann and Finnerty are products of wealthy New York City suburbs and all-male Roman Catholic prep schools. Finnerty attended Long Island's Chaminade High School, where 99 percent of the students go on to college. Seligmann went to the exclusive Delbarton School, a lacrosse powerhouse in Morristown, N.J.

"It is our hope and our conviction that the full truth of all that happened that night will vindicate Reade of these charges,'' Delbarton's headmaster, the Rev. Luke L. Travers, said in a statement.

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DURHAM, N.C. -- An attorney representing a Duke University lacrosse player accused of rape demanded the district attorney's removal from the case Monday and accused him of using it to help his election prospects.

District Attorney Mike Nifong faces a primary election Tuesday that could decide whether he remains in office. He has denied any political motivation behind his aggressive investigation.

"They don't want to go up against me," Nifong said when asked outside court Monday about the defense request for his removal.

In one of several motions filed Monday, defense attorney Kirk Osborn, who represents indicted lacrosse player Reade Seligmann, wrote of Nifong: "He created an actual conflict between his professional duty to search for the truth and his personal, vested interest in getting elected."

Osborn also asked the court to throw out the photo identifications made by the accuser, a 27-year-old student at a nearby university who had been hired to strip at a March 13 lacrosse team party, where she says she was beaten and raped.

He called the police photo lineup "unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistake and misidentification" because the accuser was only shown photos of lacrosse players. Osborn said Nifong was improperly involved in the lineup and led police to violate their own policies.

A grand jury last month indicted Seligmann, a sophomore from Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, a sophomore from Garden City, N.Y., on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual assault of the exotic dancer. The woman said she was attacked by three men, and Nifong has said he hopes to charge a third person soon.

Defense attorneys have strongly proclaimed the players' innocence, often citing DNA tests they said failed to connect the accuser and the lacrosse players tested.

Osborn's filings also included evidence and affidavits supporting a timeline the defense says proves Seligmann wasn't at the party long enough to have committed the assault described by the accuser.

In recent days, the defense has been attacking the accuser's credibility.

Osborn's motions referenced a 1996 rape allegation made by the woman, which did not lead to any charges, and a report she made in 1998, in which she accused her then-husband of threatening to kill her. Osborn's motion said she later failed to appear at a court hearing on the complaint, which was dismissed.

"Their way of trying a case in the media is not to call press conferences, but to simply file motions and court papers that contain outrageous or false statements and assume that people will report them as if they were facts," Nifong said.

Osborn also filed motions seeking to reduce Seligmann's bond, now set at $400,000, to no more than $40,000; to obtain access to the accuser's cell phone records; and to order the state to save all DNA samples.

The case has drawn protests and unwanted attention to the Duke campus. On Monday, Duke police prevented a small group of New Black Panther Party members from coming on campus to protest. Malik Shabazz, the group's national director, said the protesters want to walk silently through campus without causing any disruption.

Nifong, a nearly three-decade veteran of the prosecutor's office, was appointed district attorney last year and is seeking election for the first time in Tuesday's Democratic primary. The winner likely will be the next district attorney since no Republicans are running; if no candidate gets at least 40 percent of the vote, the top two will advance to a May 30 runoff.

AP NEWS
The Associated Press News Service

Copyright 2005-2006, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved

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Three former Duke lacrosse players falsely accused of rape filed a federal lawsuit Friday against disgraced prosecutor Mike Nifong, the city of Durham and the police detectives who handled the investigation.

The lawsuit calls the criminal case against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans “one of the most chilling episodes of premeditated police, prosecutorial and scientific misconduct in modern American history.”

The lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages, attorneys fees and numerous reforms to the way the Durham Police Department handles criminal investigations.
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The lawsuit was filed about a month after city officials met with lawyers for the families seeking a $30 million settlement and several legal reforms, two sources close to the case have told The Associated Press. The attorneys gave the city a month to respond or face a civil rights lawsuit.

“This is not about money for the boys, though obviously they deserve compensation,” said Richard D. Emery, a civil rights attorney representing Seligmann. “This is about sending a message to public officials who only get the message when they have to pay the money.”