Duke rape case. I am talking about the duke lacrosse scandal once known as the rape case. It happened in 2006, march 2006. To april 2007. By the way, it is still ongoing. That is another topic. At the time, it was the flight 370 at the time. Everybody was focused. When i went back to researching this and to study this and write about as a duke alum, i wanted to know what happened. There was never a trial and i wanted this book to be the trial that never happened. I was surprised at how few people wanted to talk about this. How few people were very happy with the outcome that had been resolved by the attorney general of North Carolina who declared these boys innocent which is a very unusual legal term usually in a court of law, somebody is declared not guilty or guilty. The concept of innocence is foreign to the legal profession. I wanted to know what happened here. I was shocked at how difficult it was to get people to talk to me, including people at duke. When i spoke to Dick Brodhead and told him i was doing this, his first reaction is why . Why are you doing this . We are beyond this. This is over. Please do not dredge it up again. We are talking about the price of silence and you said it could cost duke 100 million. Break that down. Each boy, each of the three indicted players got 20 million. Is it public or something you found out . Foundt is something i out. One of the players had some publicity about this and received a tax bill from the irs which was written about in a detroit paper. If you do the arithmetic, you can get the idea he was taxed based on Something Like a 20 million payment and this has since been confirmed to me. And that was of course, that is 60 million. Right there. There was a settlement with coach pressler who was fired. The lacrosse coach. They had to resettle with him because he brought a libel suit against the university when they paid 20 million to each of the players. Guess what . The rest of the players on the team, the nonindicted players also sued duke. To get some money, 30 players. It was resolved in february of last year. They got cash and settlements. One lawsuit still remains among three of the players. One including Ryan Mcfadden who wrote the horrible email that caused a huge controversy at the time. Between legal fees and settlement fees and pr spin and legal investigation, basically 100 million. Plus at this time. Give us i know you do not want to quote specific words. Ryan mcfaddens email said what . Over all . He was one of the sophomores on the team. One of the players there that was never in or near the bathroom never accused of anything. He was just doing the usual underage drinking that is so prevalent. After the party, he went back to his dorm and wrote an email thinking he was writing to his fellow players on the team thinking he was quoting an ellis novel, paraphrasing an ellis novel. Basically, he talked about wanting to reprise the party that they had come from, but this time he was going to essentially paraphrasing, kill the women instead of just treating them like they did this time and doing other things to them. It was a very unfortunate email, very vulgar email. As a result of that email which he thought he had sent to his colleagues on the lacrosse team, and, again, this was march 2006, when our knowledge of social media and how these things get around not quite as sophisticated as today, that email got to the police. Somebody from duke turned it over to the police they saw the email. It was about 10 days later after the incident. Basically, all hell broke loose. At that point. People were being given the benefit of the doubt until that point. Once the email was made public on april 5 after they searched Ryan Mcfaddens room, the coach was fired, the season was canceled. After the suspension, he eventually came back. It was a huger issue than it was. A couple of quick things. Where do you live now . New york city. What do you do . I am a fulltime writer. I graduated from duke in 1991. Who was the president there . A guy by the name of Terry Sanford who was a progressive governor from the state of North Carolina and a great leader and a great man and educator. By the way, i love duke and i am a loyal alum. I did not do this to hurt duke. I did this to figure out what happened. In a dispassionate way. Again, there is a tremendous amount of passion about this story even to this day. All one has to do is go to amazon and see ive amassed 25 onestar reviews. Even though it has not been out a week and is a 600 page book. So i am pretty much guessing onestarmany of those reviews have read the book. My last book was about Goldman Sachs and people have a lot of passion about that. This is in another realm. Durham, North Carolina. Is where . In the triangle. In the center of the state near raleigh and chapel hill. It is called the triangle because Triangle Park is there. Very famous biotech and technology and Research Center and anchored by North Carolina state, duke, and a unc. Hugef course, tehre are sports rivalry especially in basketball. How many students are there at the school . Duke has about 6000 undergraduates. About 1500 per class. In the subtitle of your book, the duke lacrosse scandal and the power of the elite and the corruption of our great universities. Why did you expand it beyond the scandal itself . Universities. Because i was amazed at a couple of things as i did my research into this. Number one, duke, an institution is not that much different than a wall street bank that i have written three other books about. It is a very secretive institution. They have their myths and ways of doing business. They have a lot of power in the state of North Carolina and nationally. They have a huge source of wealth in their endowment which is approaching 9 billion in the midst of a 3 billion endowment campaign. Where would that put them nationally . Certainly in the top 10. I think m. I. T. Has 10 billion. Harvard has 33 billion, 34 billion. They are not in that league, but they have an ambition to be in that league. That is part of the story. Part of dukes ambition. The school is only 75 years old. It is not at the 350 year old school that harvard is. Part of the reason that duke has the new president is because he was the former dean of yale college and wellrespected educator and to duke wanted to get into the top elite of Academic Institutions in this country and also athletic institutions. It is a very interesting balancing act that duke is trying to do. Really, only stanford and northwest try to do it. Duke has been successful. Topnotch athletics and topnot academics. This incident, it had unfortunately corrupted the university. I want to go back. This is a clip from cnn. Nancy grace back in 2006 right after this happened just to show the intensity of this issue. As you said earlier, it was like the 370 flight that went on and on. Let us watch. [video clip] david miller, what is your reaction to the indictment . And the arrests . I speak for many students that we are very concerned that two innocent people may have had their lives ruined. Lord. You said it is not possible. Im not saying it is not possible. A grand jury has heard evidence. We are saying never hear what the victim has to say im not saying i am not convinced. Your first problem is 2 innocent peopple. I said we are concerned it is possible that two innocent people may have had their lives ruined. There are many inconsistencies. Do you have a sister . I do. Your first concern is false accused. Y do not tell me what my first concern is. Those were the first words out of your mouth. What are you seeing there . Passion. This story just generated a lot of rushes to judgment. A lot of passion. It had a dog bites man quality to it. The idea that the three privileged, elite, white lacrosse players had raped a poor, single mother a black woman trying to put herself through North CarolinaCentral University by stripping. It got people cuckoo. How did you approach doing this . Completely dispassionately. City. Lieve in new york when did you start working on this and why . I started working on it about three years ago. As a duke alum, i felt the whole story completely distorted, first as you saw was nancy grace that if these kids are absolutely guilty right of the bat. And the prosecutor did not do himself any favors by spending the week on television regularly declaring the kids guilty. Then the whole narrative changed. Next thing you know, these kids had been railroaded and this woman is bipolar nifong is the worst thing, as the antichrist. The whole narrative got turned on its head. And then, you have a resolution where these kids are paid 20 million each and the university spends 100 million to preserve the brand. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to be able to look back thanks to the lawsuits, one of which is still ongoing. There has been more evidence that has come to the light. Than ever existed before. I was able to talk to a number of people who had never spoken up before. I am an investigator reporter. I do not see that much a difference between Goldman Sachs and Duke University. Who did not speak to you . Me, dicksuprisingly to brodhead would not talk to me. I asked, a number of times. I was sure as the president , my alma mater, knowing my reputation as a serious Investigative Journalism, he would have the courtesy to meet with me for the even maybe repeat what he said hundreds of times during the course of the event. Insistently would not. Lets show the audience what president brodhead looks like. This from his apology he made during those times. [video clip] Duke UniversityRichard Brodhead said there are many lessons that need to be learned from the lacrosse case speaking, and speaking at an ethics commission, he apologizes to the three players and their families about how the university handled the situation. We caused the families to feel abandoned when they were in need of support. This was a mistake. I take responsibility. The three members were charged after an exotic dancer claimed she was raped. At a team party back in march 2006. A year later, roy cooper declared them innocent. These cases are over. But prior to the university, the lacrosse season was canceled. Drawingd warned of conclusions. If there is one lesson the world should take from the case is the lesson of the danger of prejudgment and our need to defend against it at every turn. What could he have said in your opinion . I think this prejudgment works both ways. I mean, people were prejudging these kids without the evidence being fully aired. It was never a trial here. And just as quickly as people prejudge these kids, they prejudge chrystal magnum, the victim who became known as the accuser. They prejudge mike nifong who had been an attorney for 28 years. Durham. Pected in overnight, he becomes an evil conspiratorial individual whos out to get these three duke students. I mean, i think that unfortunately, the pendulum swung so quickly and duke decided they needed to get it behind it and paid 100 million a get behind it and move on. I mean, i know with interest, it showed the picture of the lacrosse house where the party occurred. That house is the wiped off the face of the earth. Down, andeen taken now it is an empty lot. Also roy cooper, the state attorney. When mike nifong was forced to recuse himself, he turned it over to roy cooper who did a fourmonth investigation before declaring the boys innocent in 2007. April 11. You asked who never talked to me. Roy cooper never talked to me. He has a right. He is the attorney general of North Carolina. If he is going to declare the students innocent, i would think he would spend time with a serious Investigative Reporter and fair andus balanced or trail of what happened. He would not do it and he would not make his files available to me. Go back to the date of the event. Was intorch 13, 2006, going the morning of march 14. Where is the house . Duke has two campuses. The great gothic spread that everybody associates with duke. On the east campus, the neoclassical. Many of the neoclassical buildings which was originally trinity college. Its about 1. 5 miles away. And there is a bus tht goes between the campuses on a beautiful, treelined road. That is in this neighborhood called trinity park. Again, this gets to the problem of the fact that the drinking age is 21 in this country. Everybody knows any universities and colleges, everybody under 21 is drinking. And they are doing this on a regular basis. The president before brodhead decided all freshmen should be put on this east campus of the neoclassical campus with the idea that perhaps drinking would be reduced. Then she made rulings about who could drink and who could not drink on the west campus. This had the fact of pushing drinking in the homes of the neighborhood which is in uppermiddleclass neighborhood. The boys lots of people, fraternity guys, in houses and they rented and had big parties. It became a huge problem in this neighborhood. The neighbors were complaining repeatedly for years about public urination and loud noise of all public drunkenness. That became part of the perfect storm that occurred here in this neighborhood. Because the neighbors were complaining to the Durham Police had to take notice. Beefedupart of the campaign to cut down on the drinking. The three boys names. We saw david evans who lives in this town. Who are the other 2 . Reade seligmann, who grew up in new york city. He went to a private school. Collin finnerty whose father was believe it or not a Senior Executive at bear stearns right before it collapsed which was the subject of my second book house of cards. Hes a big executive and they live on long island. Lets look a footage of Reade Seligmann. In 2007 when were they found innocent april 2007. [video clip] came in and said, she picked you. And i mean my dad fell to the floor. And i just sat on the ground. And i said my life is over. What do you see . Very moving testimony that was given during mike nifongs state bar hearing where he was eventually disbarred from. And he thought he was fired as well as the durham District Attorney. Very moving obviously. Very emotional. Reade seligmann was the only one of the three indicted boys that reached out to me. I mean, i reached out to them and most of them said no. They would not speak to me. Reade seligmann wanted to speak. We had email correspondence which i include in the book. And the lawyers thought the better of having me speak to him and that never happened. He had you have to give him he had a airtight alibi about where he was in various points of the evening including calling a cab and having his picture taken at an atm and taking money out and going to a restaurant and getting food. 12 30 in the evening and going back to his dorm. He had an affidavit from the cab driver who basically testified that Reade Seligmann was in his car during the time this supposedly incident occurred. Now, you know, i asked mike nifong about that. What do you think about the seligman alibi . He made his points where he thought it could very well be manufactured alibi. He had his doubts. He points to the fact that when Reade Seligmann asked for the cab to come pick him up at the house, he had the cab go to a house around the corner which mike nifong sees as strange behavior. Why would you do that . Obviously, he wanted to get away. From that house. I have a suspicion and mike nifong has a suspicion and crystal magnum has a suspicion that something torrid did happen in the bathroom. It may not have happened with reade or Collin Finnerty or david evans. There are questions about evans that are stronger than the other 2. One does get the sense that something happened. Lets see some of david evans. On cbs. [video clip] do you think if it does go to trial that if you are convicted, you could face a lot of time in prison . Do you ever think about that . Would you . Sure. 30 years, i could go to jail for something based on a lie. What role he did he play . He was one of the cocaptains. There are 4. Three of them lived in this house on buchanan. 610 north buchanan. He was one of the people who arranged for the party. He arranged for the strippers at the party. He handled the money paid to them. I guess they thought it will be a good idea to join all day and have the strippers come. Were they in season . And they were in the middle of the season. It was spring break. They had been practicing. That had two games that week. Everybody else was off the campus. It was a 15 year tradition of having the party during spring break. Again, why they thought it was a good idea, i do not know. They had submitted and no one questioned it. Usually what they did is go to strip clubs. But they thought it would be better to have the strippers come to the house rather than go to a strip club. Why they thought it was a good idea, i do not know. One of the interesting, crystal magnum, an unanswered question in my mind, she said it was a struggle. She struggled for her life in the bathroom. She was wearing fake fingernails. She said during the struggle, the fingernails popped off. Those fingernails were later found. On one of the fingernails was david evans dna with 98 certainty. Which seems pretty high to me. But, i guess, sometimes dna experts said two percent probability means not related at all. His attorneys said it got there through transference and where roy cooper, the attorney general said it got there through transference. Saying he picked up the fingernails and put them in the trash which could have happened. Except matt picked them up and put them in the trash, not david evans. Matt, another of the cocaptains, who lived in the house, said he did that. And the police wondered why if he picks them up and put them into the trash, why david evan dna was on the fingernail . With 98 certainty. It sounds like you think david evans is guilty . I cannot say that because we will never know what happened. As Donald Rumsfeld said, it could be one of the unknown unknowns. There was never a trial. I am not going to be the one to say he is guilty. Ther