Bill Bickel’s Crimeweek

Though Drew Peterson has not been charged in either his fourth wife Stacy’s October 2007 disappearance, or for his third wife Kathleen Savio’s murder, the first book about these cases — Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson by Joseph Hosey – hits the bookstores today.

Coming out next month: A book “written by” Crystal Mangum (The Last Dance For Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story), the North Carolina exotic dancer whose false rape accusations against three Duke University lacrosse players created a national controversy and ended the career of the district attorney who exploited the case for political gain.

It’s unclear what Ms. Mangum really has to say here: The most charitable version of events would be that, drug-addled as she appeared to be the night of the March 13, 2006 party, she really had no recollection of what happened and got caught up in a media witch-hunt instigated by other people’s agendas.

The other alternative is that she lied, and continued to lie, and enjoyed both the attention and the gifts lavished upon her as the victim of racial and sexual injustice.

In the first case, she really doesn’t have much to say (”What happened on the night of March 13? Heck if I know!”). In the second, she’d be acknowledging her good fortune that she was never prosecuted for a deception that ruined several lives, led to millions of dollars worth of lawsuits, and made it just that much more difficult for future actual rape victims to be taken seriously — especially exotic dancers or, if we may be more precise, strippers.

As it turned out, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong’s abuses of the legal system were so egregious, that any move to punish Mangum’s own offenses sort of fell by the wayside.

Now that Nifong’s been disbarred, though, it might not be in Mangum’s best interests to throw herself back into the spotlight.

• Drew Peterson/Stacy Peterson/Kathleen Savio
• Mike Nifong: Why We Should Be Afraid
• Mike Nifong Doesn’t Apologize

Remember Roy Pearson, the administrative court judge who last year sued a Washington, DC dry cleaners for $67 million after they allegedly lost a pair of his pants (if not, scroll down for a reprint of an earlier article)? Pearson lost the case, the dry cleaner filed a motion against him to recover $83,000 in legal fees (later dropped after donations covered the expense), and the D.C. Commission on Selection and Tenure of Administrative Law Judges voted not to renew his contract, citing his lack of “judicial temperament.”

Now he’s suing the city: He wants $1 million (for lost wages and punitive damages) and his job back, claiming he’d been fired for exposing corruption in the Office of Administrative Hearings and that the city had used his infamous lawsuit as an excuse to get rid of him. (more…)

Today, former Durham, North Carolina district attorney Mike Nifong began serving a 24-hour jail term for his role in the Duke University sexual assault case. On December 10, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick will be sentenced to up to 5 years in prison — probably between a year and a year and a half — for financing, running and taking bets on a dogfighting ring.

At the risk of getting getting hate mail from animal lovers, I think it’s important to point out here that while what Vick did was reprehensible, these are dogs. Even a PETA member would be hard pressed to argue that what Vick did was 500 times as serious as what Nifong did.

Let’s consider what Nifong did to earn his 24 hours behind bars: He created a rape case against three Duke University lacrosse players for the sake of political gain. He was aware that the accuser had offered several conflicting, drug-addled accounts of the alleged attack. He was aware that there was no physical evidence, and that there was credible evidence showing that one of the defendants was not even present at the time. Within a few weeks, DNA test results showed that the defendants did not have sexual contact with the accuser, and he with-held this information from the defense. Pandering to the black Durham voters he considered vital for his re-election, he publicly referred to the alleged attack (three white students accused of raping a black exotic dancer) as racially motivated.

The damage to the defendants included suspension from Duke University, nine months as rape suspects, reportedly over a million dollars in legal fees each, and permanent Wikipedia pages devoted to the accusations.

But let’s put aside the specific effects on the defendants, and even most of the specific charges against Nifong, and focus on this: As a prosecutor, he had three people indicted for rape, knowing that they were probably innocent, with-holding and lying about evidence indicating that they were innocent, all for the sake of trying to advance his career. And he wasn’t just anybody, he was a man given an enormous public trust and the power that accompanies it.

“Scary” shouldn’t even begin to describe it: If this is what a prosecutor could do to three young men whose families were well-connected and able to spent millions of dollars to fight the charges, what chance would the likes of us have?

Back to Vick, I’m actually fine with him going to prison for a year and a half — but the proportionality is all wrong: Nifong is guilty of offenses against not only the defendants but against our faith in the legal system. I understand that he’s lost his job, was disbarred and faces civil actions, but the criminal justice system should be demonstrating in the most severe way that this behavior can’t be tolerated.

A 24-hour sentence, on the other hand, was the court’s way of saying “We have to find you guilty, but we’re doing all we can to close ranks and protect our own.”

“I agree with the attorney general’s statement that there is no credible evidence that Mr. Seligmann, Mr. Finnerty or Mr. Evans committed any of the crimes for which they were indicted — or any other crimes [against Crystal Mangum] during the party” -Mike Nifong, former Durham County (North Carolina) district attorney

The interesting thing about this comment is that newspapers are using headlines such as “Nifong Admits That Duke Lacrosse Players Didn’t Commit Any Crime” and “Nifong Apologizes to Duke Defendants”. In fact, he worded his statement very carefully to avoid doing either: He said that he agreed with North Carolina’s Attorney General that there was no evidence that could convict them — which he knew a year ago. He never said they were innocent. He never said he was sorry he prosecuted them (only for his unspecified “mistakes”). (more…)

“I will go to my grave being associated with this case.” –Mike Nifong

The Victim of the Year Award must surely go to Mike Nifong, the former Durham (North Carolina) district attorney who was removed from office and disbarred earlier this month following his 10-month prosecution of three former Duke University on rape charges: a politically-motivated action that included withholding evidence from the defense, publicly calling the defendants hooligans and announcing that the rape was racially motivated, all the time knowing that there was no evidence, the accuser was unreliable at best, and there most likely was never any sort of sexual attack. Any sympathy we might feel over Nifong being forever associated with this case must be weighed against the fact that Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans will also be forever associated with this case, and they didn’t commit any crimes. (more…)

“As circumstances have evolved in this extraordinary case, we have attempted to balance recognition of the gravity of legal charges with the presumption of your innocence. Now with the approach of a new term, we believe that circumstances warrant that we strike this balance differently. At this point, continued extension of the administrative leave [suspension] would do unwarranted harm to your educational progress” -Larry Moneta, Duke’s vice president for student affairs, in a letter written to said in a letter to Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann and released to the public today, inviting them to return as “students in good standing”

See, though, the whole “presumption of innocence” thing is supposed to apply all along, not only when the sole witness has recanted her story, the prosecutor is facing disbarment, and the case against the defendants is circling the drain.(The third defendant, David Evans, has already graduated)

Taxi driver Moez Mostafa, a strong potential witness for Duke University lacrosse player Reade Seligmann, has been arrested on a 2003 warrant. The charge stemmed form his having driven a shoplifter home after she stole 5 purses worth about $250 from a Durham, North Dakota department store. He denied any involvement at the time and in fact helped police find the woman (who subsequently pleaded guilty).District Attorney Mike Nifong says he happened to have come upon the old arrest warrant while gathering background on witnesses. Mostafa’s arrest was not  — not, he says — meant as an attempt to intimidate anybody else who might come forward with information or evidence supporting the defendants’ innocence (Mostafa’s trip records confirm that he picked up Seligmann from the party too early for Seligmann to have taken part in the alleged rape, and Seligmann’s cell phone, ATM and dorm keycard records apparently back up this timetable as well).

The defense has asked that Nifong be removed from the case, citing his hyper-aggressive prosecution, but in fact they’ll be better off if Nifong stays: Any replacement prosecutor will still feel bound to follow through on the case, while Nifong will very likely self-destruct and take the case down with him. Just as Captain Ahab went after the whale, and Captain Queeg went after the strawberries, Nifong is going after the lacrosse players with a zeal that includes overseeing improper photo-lineups, over-use of the media, a rush to judgment that included a promise to continue prosecution even if no physical evidence is found, and now apparently a warning to any future defense witnesses.

All this is not winning him the political popularity he might have hoped for: In the May 2 Democratic primary election, 43% of the voters wanted him to retain his job. This was enough for a narrow win in a three-person race; but a 43% vote for an incumbent in a local election is not by any means a popular mandate.