RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The woman who in 2006 falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of raping her — making national headlines that sparked tensions over race, class and the privilege of college players — has admitted publicly for the first time that she made it up. up matter.
Crystal Mangum, who is Black, said in an interview with the podcast “Let’s Talk to Kat” that she “made up a story that wasn’t true” about the white dancers who went to the party where she was hired as a costume designer. “Because I wanted confirmation from people and not from God.”
“I perjured them and said they raped me when they didn’t, and that wasn’t true,” Mangum, 46, said in the interview, which was released Monday. The interview was recorded last month at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, where Mangum was incarcerated for stabbing her boyfriend to death in 2011.
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The former Duke players were acquitted in 2007 after Mangum’s case collapsed during a formal investigation. The state attorney general’s office concluded there was no evidence the assault ever took place, and its investigation found no DNA, witnesses or other evidence to support Mangum’s case.
Although their names have been cleared, Jim Cooney, one of the players’ former attorneys at the time, told The Associated Press that Mangum’s accusations caused a “tornado of destruction” for countless people involved, including the men accused. They are nationally vilified as “racist thugs,” Cooney said.
A Durham prosecutor who supported Mangum’s case was dismissed for perjury and misconduct. Prosecutors at the time declined to charge Mangum with perjury.
Former lacrosse players received an undisclosed settlement with Duke University in 2007 after suing it for handling rape allegations.
Mangum, who was convicted of second-degree murder in 2013 and is eligible to be released from prison beginning in 2026, told a podcast interviewer that he hopes the three falsely accused men can forgive him.
“I want them to know that I love them and they didn’t deserve that,” he said.
Durham-based podcaster Kat DePasquale said she wrote to Mangum because she wanted to know about the issue that got so much attention, and that Mangum wrote back saying she wanted to talk.
Mangum’s apology struck Cooney as sincere and “a good first step,” but he said the decision to forgive him came down to three former lacrosse players.
“It’s going to be a part of their lives and a part of their records,” Cooney said of the three men.