RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The lady who in 2006 falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse gamers of raping her – making nationwide headlines that stirred tensions about race, class and the privilege of faculty athletes — has admitted publicly for the primary time that she made up the story.
Crystal Mangum, who’s Black, mentioned in an interview with the “Let’s Talk with Kat” podcast that she “made up a narrative that wasn’t true” in regards to the white gamers who attended a celebration the place she was employed to carry out as a stripper “as a result of I wished validation from folks and never from God.”
“I testified falsely towards them by saying that they raped me after they didn’t and that was improper,” Mangum, 46, mentioned within the interview, which was launched Monday. The interview was recorded final month on the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, the place Mangum is incarcerated for fatally stabbing her boyfriend in 2011.
The former Duke gamers have been declared harmless in 2007 after Mangum’s story fell aside underneath authorized scrutiny.
The state lawyer normal’s workplace concluded there was no credible proof an assault ever occurred, and its investigation discovered no DNA, witness or different proof to substantiate Mangum’s story.
The Durham prosecutor who championed Mangum’s case was disbarred for mendacity and misconduct. Prosecutors on the time declined to press expenses towards Mangum for the false accusations.
The former lacrosse gamers reached an undisclosed settlement with Duke University in 2007 after suing it for the dealing with of the rape allegations.
Mangum, who was convicted of second-degree homicide in 2013 and is eligible to be launched from jail as early as 2026, instructed the podcast interviewer that she hopes the three falsely accused males can forgive her.
“I need them to know that I like them and so they didn’t deserve that,” she mentioned.
Durham-based podcaster Kat DePasquale mentioned she wrote to Mangum as a result of she was curious in regards to the case that received a lot consideration, and that Mangum wrote again saying she wished to speak.
