Duke Lacrosse Case (North Carolina, 2006)

In 2006, members of the Duke University men’s lacrosse team were accused of sexually assaulting a woman hired to dance at an off campus team party. The case became a major national story because of the clash between early allegations, prosecutorial conduct, forensic findings, and later exoneration.

• February 2006: The Duke men’s lacrosse team schedules a party for March that includes hiring dancers.
• March 13, 2006: Team members hold a party at an off campus house at 610 North Buchanan Boulevard.
• Two women are hired to dance.
• One of the women, Crystal Gail Mangum, later alleges that she was sexually assaulted by multiple players inside a bathroom.
• March 14, 2006: Mangum reports the alleged assault to police.
• Durham Police begin a criminal investigation.
• District Attorney Mike Nifong becomes heavily involved in the case early in the investigation.

Initial Investigation and Public Statements

• March 23, 2006: Duke suspends the lacrosse team’s season while the investigation continues.
• March 24 to 28, 2006: DA Nifong speaks to the media repeatedly.
• He states that a racially motivated sexual assault likely occurred.
• These statements are later criticized as unethical and prejudicial.
• March 28, 2006: Search warrants and affidavits describe Mangum’s version of events.
• Police conduct initial DNA collection from players.

DNA Results and First Indictments

• April 10, 2006: DNA results from state labs show no DNA from any lacrosse players on Mangum or her belongings.
• Nifong continues to pursue the case.
• April 18, 2006: First player indicted.
• Reade Seligmann is charged with first degree rape, first degree sexual offense, and kidnapping.
• April 19, 2006: Collin Finnerty is indicted on the same charges.
• April 2006 (Late): Team captain David Evans is indicted.
• All three players proclaim innocence.

Pretrial Problems and Withheld Evidence

• May to June 2006: Defense attorneys reveal inconsistencies in Mangum’s accounts.
• Duke cancels the remainder of the lacrosse season permanently for 2006.
• June 2006: Longtime coach Mike Pressler is forced to resign.
• Summer to Fall 2006: Defense attorneys fight for complete DNA files.
• A private DNA lab, hired by Nifong, later admits that it found DNA from multiple unidentified men on Mangum but none from any of the accused players.
• This exculpatory evidence was not originally disclosed.
• December 15, 2006: Nifong drops the rape charges but keeps sexual offense and kidnapping charges.

Case Collapse and Exoneration

• January 2007: North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper takes over the case after the state bar begins ethics proceedings against Nifong.
• February to March 2007: The Attorney General’s office conducts a full review.
• They determine there is no credible evidence that an assault occurred.
• April 11, 2007: All charges are dismissed.
• Attorney General Roy Cooper publicly declares the three defendants innocent.
• Cooper states that they were victims of a tragic rush to accuse and faulty investigative and prosecutorial conduct.

Disciplinary Actions and Resolutions

• June 16, 2007: The North Carolina State Bar finds that Nifong violated multiple ethics rules, including withholding DNA evidence and making improper public statements. Source
• June 2007: Nifong is disbarred.
• July 2007: Nifong resigns as District Attorney and is later briefly jailed for contempt of court.
• Fall 2007: Duke reaches settlements with the exonerated players. Details are confidential.

Aftermath and Legacy

• The case becomes a major example of wrongful accusation, prosecutorial misconduct, and media misrepresentation.
• Duke reforms its student athlete oversight policies.
• Numerous books, documentaries, and academic analyses examine the case.
• The defendants go on to graduate and pursue careers without criminal records.

Long Beach, California, 2002 to 2012

Background:

• Brian Banks was a star linebacker at Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, California.
• In 2002 he was falsely accused of rape and kidnapping by a fellow student, Wanetta Gibson. Although there was no DNA found on the accuser or her clothing, no eye-witness testimony, and no other evidence to support Gibson’s claims, Brian was arrested for the crime.
• Banks later spent over five years in prison and was exonerated in 2012 after new evidence surfaced.

Initial Allegation and Arrest

• July 2002: Sixteen year old Brian Banks and fifteen year old Wanetta Gibson have a brief encounter on campus at Polytechnic High School.
• Gibson alleges that Banks forcibly raped her in a stairwell.
• Long Beach Police arrest Banks the same day.
• July to August 2002: Banks maintains his innocence and denies any sexual contact.
• Defense counsel advises Banks to accept a plea deal because of the potential sentence of forty one years to life if convicted at trial.
• Banks is charged with rape and kidnapping.
• September 2002: Brian Banks accepts a plea bargain.
• He pleads no contest to one count of forcible rape.
• In return, the kidnapping charge is dismissed and the recommended sentence is significantly reduced.

Prison Term and Release

• 2003: Banks is sentenced to six years in prison.
• 2003 to 2007: Banks serves over five years in state prison.
• While incarcerated, he is required to register as a sex offender and loses all scholarship opportunities.
• June 2007: Banks is released from prison and begins five years of strict parole supervision.
• Conditions include GPS monitoring, curfews, and restricted movement.
• He remains on the sex offender registry.

New Evidence Emerges

• 2011: Gibson contacts Banks on Facebook and asks to meet.
• Banks meets her with his defense team’s private investigator present.
• During the recorded meeting, Gibson states that Banks never raped her and admits the allegation was fabricated.
• 2011 (Late): Gibson refuses to recant publicly because her family had won a civil settlement of approximately one and a half million dollars from the Long Beach Unified School District based on the original accusation.

Exoneration

• May 24, 2012: The California Innocence Project presents the recorded admission to the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Source
• The judge rules that Banks was falsely convicted.
• All charges are dismissed.
• Brian Banks is fully exonerated.
• May 2012: Banks is removed from the sex offender registry.
• His parole restrictions end.

Post Exoneration: Civil Litigation and Public Impact

• September 2012: The Long Beach Unified School District sues Gibson to recover the civil settlement money.
• A later judgment orders Gibson and her mother to repay over two million dollars.
• 2013 to 2016: Brian Banks signs with NFL teams for preseason and practice squad opportunities, including the Atlanta Falcons and Las Vegas Locomotives.
• He becomes a public speaker on wrongful convictions and criminal justice reform.
• 2018: Production begins on the feature film Brian Banks, released in 2018. The film dramatizes his case and exoneration.

United Kingdom, 2010 to 2017

Initial False Allegation

• November 2010: Jemma Beale reports that she was raped by Mahad Cassim after leaving a bar.
• Police investigate and arrest Cassim.
• Cassim maintains he is innocent.
• 2011: Based on Beale’s allegation, Cassim is charged and later convicted.
• He is sentenced to seven years in prison.
• Beale is treated as a vulnerable victim throughout legal proceedings.

Additional False Reports

• 2012: Beale reports that she was sexually assaulted by a taxi driver.
• Police investigate but find inconsistencies.
• No suspect is identified.
• 2013: Beale reports another alleged sexual assault by a man outside a pub.
• Officers begin noting contradictions between her accounts and available evidence.
• Over time, police identify a pattern of inconsistent statements, unsupported claims, and evidence contradicting Beale’s descriptions.

Major Investigation and Review

• 2013 (Late): Detectives review Beale’s history of allegations.
• They uncover multiple claims that appear fabricated.
• They identify four separate alleged incidents involving 15 different men.
• Evidence shows that several accusations could not have occurred as described.
• 2014: Police conduct a full scale reinvestigation of all prior allegations.
• They find that Beale had made false reports to gain attention and sympathy.
• Investigators discover that Cassim’s 2011 conviction was unsafe.

Mahad Cassim’s Conviction Quashed

• 2015: The Court of Appeal reviews Cassim’s case.
• His conviction is overturned after the new evidence regarding Beale’s false allegations comes to light.
• Cassim is formally cleared.
• He had served two years in prison.

Charges Against Jemma Beale

• 2015 to 2016: Following the review, prosecutors charge Beale with multiple counts of:
• Perjury
• Perverting the course of justice
• Charges cover several false rape and sexual assault allegations spanning four years.

Trial and Conviction

June to July 2017: Beale stands trial at Southwark Crown Court. Evidence includes:

• Inconsistencies in her statements
• Surveillance footage contradicting her accounts
• Testimony from alleged victims
• Recorded interviews revealing motive and fabrication patterns
• July 24, 2017: The jury finds her guilty on all counts:
• Four counts of perjury
• Four counts of perverting the course of justice
• August 2017: Beale is sentenced to ten years in prison.
• The judge states that her lies caused serious harm to innocent men and damaged public confidence in genuine sexual assault reporting.

Appeal

• 2019: Beale appeals her conviction.
• The Court of Appeal rejects her arguments and upholds the conviction and sentence.

Significance

• The case highlighted the severe harm caused by false allegations.
• It prompted renewed scrutiny of investigative procedures in sexual offense cases.
• Police emphasized that fabricated claims divert resources from real victims who need protection.

Initial Incident and Investigation

• January 29, 2019: Jussie Smollett calls Chicago Police and reports that two masked men attacked him near his apartment in Streeterville.
• He states the attackers shouted racist and homophobic slurs, referenced “MAGA,” poured a chemical substance on him, and placed a rope around his neck.
• January 30 to February 10, 2019: Chicago Police open a full investigation.
• Surveillance cameras show the movements of two men later identified as brothers Abel and Ola Osundairo.
• Police find inconsistencies in Smollett’s account and lack of corroborating evidence.
• February 13, 2019: Police execute a search warrant at the Osundairo home and recover items connecting them to Smollett.
• February 14 to February 17, 2019: The Osundairo brothers are detained.
• They tell detectives that Smollett paid them to stage the attack and rehearsed the events with them.
• February 20, 2019: Smollett is charged with disorderly conduct for filing a false police report.
• He turns himself in and is arrested.
• February 21, 2019: Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson holds a press conference.
• Police state that Smollett staged the attack because he was dissatisfied with his salary on the television show “Empire.”

Controversial Dismissal of Charges

• March 26, 2019: The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office unexpectedly drops all charges against Smollett.
• Smollett forfeits his ten thousand dollar bond but does not admit guilt.
• The case is sealed.
• The decision prompts national criticism.
• March 27, 2019: Chicago City officials and police leadership express outrage and demand accountability.
• The City of Chicago prepares a civil action to recover investigative costs.

Civil Actions and Backlash

• April 2019: The City of Chicago files a civil lawsuit seeking reimbursement of more than one hundred and thirty thousand dollars for overtime spent investigating the staged attack.
• June to August 2019: Public pressure intensifies.
• Legal groups and elected officials call for a review of the State’s Attorney’s decision.

Special Prosecutor Investigation and New Charges

• February 2020: Special Prosecutor Dan Webb concludes that the dismissal of charges in 2019 was improper.
• Webb states that the evidence overwhelmingly shows Smollett staged the attack.
• February 11, 2020: A grand jury indicts Smollett on six felony counts of disorderly conduct for making false reports to police.

Criminal Trial and Conviction

• November 29, 2021: Smollett’s criminal trial begins in Cook County.
• The Osundairo brothers testify that Smollett orchestrated the hoax and paid them with a check.
• December 9, 2021: Jury returns a verdict.
• Smollett is found guilty on five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct for lying to police.

Sentencing and Immediate Incarceration

• March 10, 2022: Judge James Linn sentences Smollett to:
• Thirty months of probation
• One hundred and fifty days in jail
• Restitution of more than one hundred and twenty thousand dollars
• A twenty five thousand dollar fine
• Smollett insists he is innocent while being taken into custody.
• March 16, 2022: Smollett is released from jail after six days pending appeal.

Appeal

• December 2023: The Illinois Appellate Court rules two to one to uphold Smollett’s conviction.
• The court finds that the special prosecutor was properly appointed and that the conviction was supported by the evidence.

Significance

• The case is considered one of the most publicized false reporting cases in the United States.
• It prompted reviews of prosecutorial practices in Cook County.
• Chicago Police highlighted the considerable resources diverted from real victims during the investigation.