The woman at the center of the Duke University lacrosse rape case has finally admitted that she lied when she accused three young men of sexual assault in 2006.
Crystal Mangum, of Durham, North Carolina, came into the spotlight in 2006 when she accused the trio of gang raping her during a party where she was hired as a stripper.
The 46-year-old mother of three is currently in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder for stabbing her boyfriend with a kitchen knife in 2011.
It was from prison where he spoke Let’s talk to Kata freelance content creator who posted an interview with her on Thursday.
There, Mangum admitted that she had made the whole thing up.
“I testified falsely against them saying that they raped me when they didn’t and that that was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of many other people who believed in me,” he said.
Mangum even admitted that the three men “trusted me and I would not betray their trust.”
“(I) made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.”
Crystal Magnum, the woman at the center of the Duke University lacrosse rape case, finally admitted that she lied when she accused three young men of assault in 2006.
Mangum, from Durham, North Carolina, first made headlines in 2006 when she accused the men (Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann) of gang raping her during a party where she was hired as a stripper.
She claimed that it was her search for validation that led her to become a stripper despite having a college education.
Mangum then asked the three men he accused, David Evans, Colin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, to accept his apologies.
‘I want them to know that I love them and that they didn’t deserve it and I hope they can forgive me.
“I hope they can heal and trust God and know that God loves them and that God loves them through me, letting them know that they are valuable and that they don’t deserve it.”
Mangum made it clear that he has tried to find religion in prison and said he reads the Bible primarily to “get through the day.”
‘You can get all that (growth) in Jesus, he loves us just the way we are. He is enough and we are enough.
He says he would describe his time in prison as one of “growth.”
However, he said that he ‘has no regrets’ and that everything happens thanks to God.
The case became one of the most racially charged in recent times and ended explosively when the prosecutor was disqualified and the young people were declared innocent.
Mangum admitted that he had made the whole thing up in an interview published Thursday.
The 46-year-old mother of three is currently in prison after being found guilty of second-degree murder for stabbing her boyfriend with a kitchen knife in 2011.
The chilling case began on March 13, 2006, when three of the four co-captains of the Duke men’s lacrosse team hosted a party for their teammates at their off-campus home.
The group had paid a total of $800 for two exotic dancers to perform, one of whom was single mother Crystal, who was studying at nearby North Carolina Central University.
All but one of the players on the lacrosse team were white, and Crystal, who is black, subsequently made a series of accusations against three of the team members.
She accused Evans, Seligmann and Finnerty of raping and sexually assaulting her in the bathroom.
And the resulting fallout created a storm across the country, highlighting racial and socioeconomic divisions at the elite university and beyond, in what became known as the Duke Lacrosse Affair.
The coach was forced to resign and the university canceled the rest of the season.
Speaking after being charged, David said: ‘You have all been told some fantastic lies, and I look forward to seeing them unravel in the coming weeks, as they have already done in the past few weeks… The truth will come out. ‘
The students hired defense attorneys, but the situation became confusing when Crystal claimed she could no longer remember the exact details of what happened that night.
Mangum says he would describe his time in prison as one of “growth”
The chilling case began on March 13, 2006, when three of the four co-captains of the Duke men’s lacrosse team hosted a party for their teammates at their off-campus home.
The DNA evidence did not match any of the team’s 46 white players and she eventually recanted her statement.
She later said that she was not sure if she had been raped, but insisted that some type of sexual assault had occurred, the Los Angeles Times saying.
The tide eventually turned against prosecutor Mike Nifong, who had “too eagerly argued his case in the media.”
Defense attorneys for the children asked the North Carolina State Bar to intervene, and charges were filed against a sitting district attorney for the first time in history.
It was decided that Nifong had been too forthright and withheld crucial DNA findings from the investigation; he was later disqualified.
As a result, the case was turned over to an alternate district attorney, Roy Cooper, who dropped charges against the players just four months later. Cooper recently finished two terms as the state’s Democratic governor.
He declared the university students “innocent” and called Nifong a “dishonest prosecutor.”
Ultimately, the case did not go to trial and the three players received $20 million each in a settlement with Duke.
The house has since been torn down and the university spent more than $100 million in legal fees, liquidation costs and other expenses to preserve its “brand.”
On April 3, 2011, she and her 46-year-old boyfriend, Reginald Daye, who had been dating for about a month, became involved in a heated argument after she was allegedly caught flirting with another man.
The house has since been torn down and the university spent more than $100 million on legal fees, settlement costs and other expenses to preserve its “brand,” according to vanity fair.
Crystal, who later published a memoir titled The Last Dance For Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story, was never accused of making false accusations – bBut his legal problems would continue to worsen.
Shortly after, in February 2010, she was convicted of a misdemeanor for setting a fire that nearly destroyed her home with her three children inside.
In a videotaped police interrogation, Crystal told officers that she confronted her then-boyfriend, Milton Walker, and burned his clothes, broke the windshield of his car and threatened to stab him.
The single-story duplex suffered heavy smoke damage, but no one was injured, according to a news release from the Durham Fire Department.
But there was still one last tragic twist in the story.
On April 3, 2011, she and her 46-year-old boyfriend, Reginald Daye, who had been dating for about a month, were caught in a heated argument after she was allegedly caught flirting with another man.
She claimed Reginald had been beating her at the time before she snatched the kitchen knife from him and stabbed him in self-defence.
Crystal told the court: “He got on top of me, punched me and then started strangling me.” I couldn’t breathe. My head hurts a lot.
“I was just trying to survive and I felt like Reginald was trying to kill me,” he added in his testimony.
The mother finally “hit him on the side” of the chest in her apartment.
In a call to emergency services immediately after the stabbing, Reginald’s nephew told the operator: “It’s Crystal Mangum. The Crystal Mangum. I told him she was a problem from the fucking beginning.
Reginald died 10 days later at Duke Hospital due to complications from his injuries.
It took the jury just six hours to reach a unanimous verdict.
In 2013, Crystal, then 34 years old, was sentenced to a minimum of 14 years in prison for second-degree murder.