The Victim Involved in the Infamous Duke Lacrosse Players Sexual Assault Case Admits She Lied

In March 2006, the world was six months away from being able to use Facebook. At that point, it was only available to college students since its inception in 2004. Twitter was still two years away from being created which means the prevailing social media website was MySpace. In order for something to go viral, so to speak, it would have to be huge. The Duke lacrosse case was exactly that.

The story of three players allegedly raping a sex worker had all of the elements needed to spark interest and outrage from the public. There may not have been much in the way of social media, but the actual media couldn't get enough. Three athletic, white young men attending a prestigious university stood accused of sexually assaulting a Black stripper. They denied the allegations but no one believed them. What happened to the Duke lacrosse players? Here's what we know.

According to The New York Times, in April 2007 the charges of rape, sexual offense, and kidnapping brought against Reade Seligmann, David Evans, and Collin Finnerty were dropped. Attorney general Roy A. Cooper said the players had been "wrongly accused by an 'unchecked' and 'overreaching' district attorney who had ignored contradictory evidence and instead relied on the stripper’s 'faulty and unreliable' accusations." They found no evidence supporting the accuser's claims that she had been violently assaulted.

After they were exonerated, Seligmann, Evans, and Finnerty filed a lawsuit against Duke University which was settled in June 2007, per the school. A statement released by Duke said, "These young men and their families have been the subject of intense scrutiny that has taken a heavy toll ... It is in the best interests of the Duke community to eliminate the possibility of future litigation and move forward." Vanity Fair reported they may have received as much as $20 million each.

All three have since moved on from what was undoubtedly the worst year of their lives. Per the 2016 ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Fantastic Lies, Finnerty left Duke and graduated from Loyola College in Maryland. While there, he helped lead their lacrosse team to the NCAA Tournament. He is now an investment banker at MJC Partners. Seligmann moved on to Brown University, where he also played lacrosse. He went on to become a lawyer and is a senior associate at Alston & Bird.

Unlike his teammates, Evans stayed at Duke and graduated with a BA in Economics. He also holds an MBA with a concentration in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. At present, he is a Partner at Apax Digital where he "focuses on growth equity and buyout investments in high-growth internet, enterprise software, and technology-enabled services companies," per their website.

In December 2024, Crystal Mangum went on the Let's Talk with Kat podcast where the former exotic dancer admitted she lied about being raped by the three Duke lacrosse players. The interview was conducted from the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, where Mangum is serving a sentence of 170 to 216 months for second-degree murder, reported WRAL. In November 2013, Mangum was found guilty of the April 2011 stabbing of her boyfriend, 46-year-old Reginald Daye.

As to why she lied about being sexually assaulted, Mangum said, "I made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God." She was also seeking forgiveness from Seligmann, Evans, and Finnerty, who Mangum says did not deserve that. Mangum also said what she did was wrong and added, "I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me."