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From Fox News: Former stripper and current murder convict Crystal Mangum confessed to lying about being raped by Duke Lacrosse players in an interview on the independent media outlet “Let’s Talk With Kat” on Thursday.
“I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t and that was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me,” Mangum said. “[I] made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.”
Mangum, who is serving a prison sentence for murdering her boyfriend, falsely accused three Duke players of raping her while she was performing at a team party in March 2006. The players she accused were arrested, igniting a national controversy and conversations about racism.
The three players, David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, were all found innocent of the crimes. But Mangum was not prosecuted for perjury due to questions about her mental health.
The statute of limitations on perjury charges in North Carolina has already expired, so Mangum is off the hook for her lies that upended the lives of three innocent athletes, and even caused the team to have to cancel a game in March 2008.
Former Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong, the lead prosecutor in the case, also perpetuated the lies by insisting in a March 2006 CBS News interview that “there’s no doubt a sexual assault took place” and that it was “racially motivated.” He was disbarred a year later for lying in court and withholding DNA evidence which later proved the three players were innocent.
The Duke Chronicle reported that Mangum issued her confession in an interview published Wednesday on “Let’s Talk with Kat,” hosted by Katerena DePasquale, at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women.
Mangum requested the interview, writing in a letter to DePasquale, “It’s been on my heart to do a public apology concerning the Duke lacrosse case. I actually lied about the incident to the public, my family, my friends and to God about it, and I’m not proud about it.”
While saying she hopes the three men can forgive her, Mangum then brazenly told DePasquale, “I don’t have any regrets. Everything happens to get everybody to the point where they are and it’s all to show God’s love and His forgiveness, His grace and His mercy.”
At this point, probably the only people who still believed Mangum were Mike Nifong, author Wm, (“something happened”) Cohan, and Duke’s Group of 88. But still an important final development in the case.
Full interview.https://t.co/7rtitQ48mq— KC Johnson (@kcjohnson9) December 12, 2024
But the false allegation against the three Duke Lacrosse players is only part of Mangum’s criminal history. Mangum, now 46, is from Durham, North Carolina.
In August 1996, she filed a police report, claiming that three years earlier, in 1993 when she was 14 years old, she was kidnapped by three men, driven to a house 15 miles away and raped. One of the three men she accused was her then-boyfriend. Claiming she feared for her life, she backed out of the charges, so the case was never pursued.
Mangum graduated from high school in 1996, and joined the U.S. Navy. Soon after joining the Navy, she married Kenneth McNeill, then told police he threatened to kill her. The charge was dismissed when she failed to show up for court, and that marriage soon ended. Less than two years after joining the Navy, she was kicked out after becoming pregnant by a fellow sailor.
Mangum returned to Durham and began working as a stripper. In 2002, she was arrested for stealing a taxicab, leading police on a wild chase, and nearly running over an officer.
In March 2006 she made the false allegations against the three Duke Lacrosse players.
In February 2010, Mangum got in a fight with her then-boyfriend and set a fire inside the home with her three children inside. Her 9-year-old daughter had to call the police, and Mangum was arrested. Three months later, she was released from jail.
Less than a year later, in April 2011, Mangum got in a fight with another boyfriend, Reginald Daye, stabbing him multiple times. He died at the hospital 10 days later, and she was charged with murder. She received a 14-year prison sentence, and is scheduled to be released on February 27, 2026.
Crystal Mangum, the woman who falsely accused three Duke men’s lacrosse players of rape in 2006, admitted for the first time that she lied about the allegations, and asked for David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann’s forgiveness:https://t.co/8JTulQ6JQF
— The Chronicle (@DukeChronicle) December 13, 2024
Crystal Mangum confesses to lying about being raped by Duke lacrosse players in 2006 https://t.co/Uuar0H1zCY
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 13, 2024
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