Mainstream media’s big role in the conspiracy against Crystal Mangum

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The truth will set Crystal Mangum free. That is a proposition of which I have been a proponent for some time. Durhamians and Tar Heelians would put a kibosh on the baseless and vendetta-driven criminal charges against Crystal Mangum (the Duke Lacrosse victim/accuser) if they only knew the truth about events of April 3, 2011, that were responsible for Mangum’s current entanglement with the law. But the masses are ignorant of the truth… in the dark, left standing amidst the shadows of a moonless night. The reason for the misguided opinions and sentiments surrounding this injustice is due to actions and inactions of the mainstream media… all acting in concert with one another and their fellow co-conspirators. Media’s main contribution to the conspiracy against Mangum is to keep the truth hidden… buried deep beneath diversions, misstatements, selective omissions, misinterpretations, and outright lies. Instead of acting as a torch of enlightenment in the Mangum case, it has been functioning as a shroud to strike the death knell for justice.

For the prosecution to be able to bring such bogus and baseless charges against Ms. Mangum, with a straight face, requires the devoted participation of four additional center-stage actors: (1) the medical examiner (to provide the fraudulent autopsy report upon which to base the prosecution); (2) extremely pliable turncoat defense attorneys (to look the other way, pull punches, and advise against Mangum’s best self-interests); (3) enablers (individuals and organizations [NAACP, ACLU, etc.] who are in a position to do or say something to positively impact the situation, but elect to remain silent… mostly out of fear, having learned their lessons from the persecution of former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong); and (4) the mainstream media. Of the aforementioned four, the media is one of the crooked prosecution’s most valued allies because of the influence it has over the public… a public that for the most part places a great deal of trust in the media to provide honest and accurate reporting.

Although the mainstream media has been charged with being a public watchdog, to expose corruption in government and business that adversely affects the civilian citizens, when it comes to the Duke Lacrosse case or any of its participants, all bets are off. The driving force behind the remarkable unity of all media outlets stems from the fact that Rae Evans, mother of one of the Duke Lacrosse defendants, was an executive at CBS News for more than a decade. Afterward, she founded a highly successful Washington DC public relations firm of which she is president and CEO. In addition, her husband is an attorney in a prestigious DC law firm. As strong as her ties are to the other media outlets, there is no doubt that she possesses sway as to how stories are spun, and she has not kept her feelings hidden. During an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” show, Ms. Evans stated that she wanted Mr. Nifong to “pay every day for the rest of his life” (as retribution for his having the audacity to prosecute her son and the other lacrosse players). Defying journalistic codes of good standards, CBS never disclosed Ms. Evans’ ties to the station during any of its programs which featured its biased stories about the Duke Lacrosse case.

Another factor which drives the selective, skewed, and one-sided reporting of the Crystal Mangum case is the media’s desire to protect Duke University’s reputation and to mitigate the civil liability which Durham has self-inflicted upon itself with its unjust treatment of Mangum. The quandary at the root of the murder charge against Mangum is the fact that Reginald Daye’s death was not caused by the stab wound inflicted by Mangum. An unrelated botched intubation by Duke University Hospital staff, which resulted in brain death, led to Daye’s elective removal from life support… the proximate cause of his death. The media, through the prosecution’s charge against Mangum, has done its best to shift blame for Daye’s death from the Duke hospital, where it truly belongs, to Crystal Mangum.

Shortly after the stabbing of Reginald Daye by his live-in companion Mangum, the mainstream media flourished with articles about the stabbing, ABC-11 even falsely stating that Daye was repeatedly stabbed by Mangum. Lacking a lot of specifics, especially Mangum’s side of the story, the media devoted little attention to the incident itself, and focused much on the so-called “2010 arson” incident involving Mangum, and her role in the Duke Lacrosse case… never failing to misleadingly mention that the Duke Lacrosse defendants were declared “innocent.” Mangum was represented by media as emotionally unstable, mentally ill, and a perpetual prevaricator with a penchant for being physically violent with her boyfriends… none of which is true. On the other hand, the media hid from the public Reginald Daye’s criminal history (which included assault on a female), the fact that he was an alcoholic, and that he was highly intoxicated at the time of the incident. The media never bothered to mention that Mangum sustained physical injuries, including a swollen lower lip and a cut around her left eye. Nor did the media report findings at the scene of the incident which included clumps of Mangum’s hair, and a bathroom door that had been kicked in by Daye. In fact, the media, at all times, painted Mr. Daye in the most positive light.

As the media became more aware of the weaknesses in the prosecution’s case, its coverage of the case markedly diminished. On the third postoperative night, after Duke University Hospital staff intubated the esophagus rather than the trachea which resulted in Daye’s comatose state, the media went into a self-imposed news embargo on the subject. For a week, while Daye lay in a coma, the media kept the public in the dark as to the serious and significant turn of events in Daye’s medical condition. It was not until after Daye died a week later that the people were even informed about the fact that Daye had been in a weeklong coma. A suddenly apathetic media all of a sudden had no curiosity as to how Daye’s condition dramatically evolved from “expected to make a full recovery” to “irreversible brain-damaged induced coma.” Instead, the media placed the blame for Daye’s death on Mangum… never mentioning the botched intubation and, with the exception of only one media source, not mentioning that Daye was even on life support and that his elective removal from it preceded his death.

There was a flurry of media activity when the autopsy report was released to the public four months after it was written by Medical Examiner Clay Nichols. The media falsely proclaimed to the people that the stab wound inflicted by Mangum perforated “six” organs… the left lung, the diaphragm (not an organ, but a muscle), the left kidney, the stomach, the spleen, and the colon. As I revealed online in the operative report I procured from prosecution discovery, only the spleen and colon were damaged by the knife wound. In addition, other medical reports from prosecution discovery contradicted that Daye sustained any lesions to his left upper extremity which Dr. Nichols interpreted as being “defensive injuries.” Although the lack of credibility of the autopsy report by Nichols was brought to the attention of the mainstream media, they never attempted to question its accuracy or to set the record straight. Instead, the media chose to let their readers and viewers continue to believe that Daye’s death was due to the perforation of six organs by a single stab wound to the torso with a steak knife.

Specifically, I made contact with WRAL and its investigative team (including manager Randall Kerr), and ABC-11 at its downtown Raleigh studio, to enlighten them about the problems with the Daye autopsy report by Dr. Nichols. I even hand-delivered a letter to Jim Goodmon, the president and CEO of Capital Broadcasting Company which owns WRAL and FOX 50 among other media holdings. Per the usual response I have received from the media, I was ignored. As I was aware, the problem was not that the media did not know that what they reported regarding the autopsy report was incorrect and misleading, but that they did not want the general public to know. Such is still the case as the media continues to ignore the injustices in Mangum’s plight.

Another tactic utilized by the media is to not so subtly defile supporters of Mangum by presenting them as being lawless, unstable, and irresponsible. The headlines may blare that “Mangum supporter is being investigated by the State Bar,” but it is that which is underlying that story that is concealed. When approaching her one year anniversary of incarceration with no activity by her attorney of record, Mangum requested my assistance in drafting motions for her. I innocently drafted three motions based upon prosecution discovery that she sent me. She signed the motions and I filed them with the court. According to the State Bar, more than one journalist complained about me practicing law without a license… which propelled the Bar to investigate me. In order to conceal the identities of the journalists, the Bar itself assumed the role of the complainant in the action against me. Although the alleged wrongdoing against me was trivial and petty, the media, and the State Bar both made a mountain out of this tiny molehill. Diversion ruled the day, as the media brought attention to the alleged unauthorized practice of filing the motions (even questioning whether or not Mangum knowledge or consent for their filings), while disregarding the issues addressed by contents of the motions.

The selective and biased reporting by the media is not without severe consequences with respect to the administration of justice. Its role in the conspiracy against Mangum has helped keep a person innocent of committing a crime (and actually being a victim of crimes against her by Daye) incarcerated for 505 days as of today’s posting… and counting. The media is doing a disservice to Ms. Mangum, to Lady Justice, to the cause of “equal justice for all,” and to the public which reads its reports and views its broadcasts. In all fairness I do not fault reporters, news anchors, managers, and editors on the lower rungs of the media business, as the policies regarding how stories about Mangum are to be presented are determined by those at the top. Mr. Goodmon, as president and CEO is to be held accountable, rather than anchor David Crabtree, for example. Presidents and CEOs of ABC-11 and NBC-17 are guilty of failing in their duty to the public, as well. The media conspiracy in this Mangum criminal issue is long on fidelity and ubiquitous throughout the country.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t help persuade the mainstream media to do the right thing when enablers, such as politicians, retired judges, the governor, the Attorney General’s Office, civil rights leaders and organizations, including the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence, sit on their hands and allow their mouths to be muzzled. Only the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong is speaking out against the injustice towards Crystal Mangum… and as would be expected, the media has gone out of its way to minimize the group and discredit it whenever possible.

The media’s handling of the Crystal Mangum case has been disgraceful, and its subscribers and the public at large deserve better. 

April 3rd… a truly sad anniversary

April 3, 2012 will mark the one year anniversary of yet another Durham tragedy… one that surely calls for no celebration. It will be a year since Crystal Mangum, the Duke Lacrosse victim/accuser has been in jail on bogus charges related to the stabbing of Reginald Daye. What this day will invoke, in people of enlightenment and good will, is a feeling of shame for yet another injustice based on the vendetta prosecution of Ms. Mangum. Like a pit-bull that won’t turn loose a leg of lamb, the Durham police and prosecutors continue to pursue to seek vengeance against the person, an African American female, who was responsible for what has been known as the Duke Lacrosse case.

The Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants are not just satisfied with the $20 million payout that they each received in a shakedown of Duke University… they thirst for blood of all involved in the case. Rae Evans, mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans, made clear her vindictive streak by publicly stating that she wanted Mike Nifong to “pay every day for the rest of his life.” With her strong connections to the media, which includes more than a decade of working as an executive with CBS News, she has managed to direct the mainstream media into an all-out crusade to crush former Durham district attorney and Duke Lacrosse prosecutor Nifong, Crystal Mangum, Nifong supporters, and anyone considered by the Powers-That-Be to be on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case.

This Carpetbagger Jihad agenda has been highly successful in manipulating the mainstream media to destroy the honorable careers of Mike Nifong, lab director Brian Meehan, and the then Durham Assistant District Attorney Tracey Cline… although, removed from her elected position as Durham district attorney using a little known-rarely used elastic law, the Jihadists’ work on Cline will not be completed until she is at least disbarred. Police detectives and officers who worked on the Duke Lacrosse case have also been put through the wringer by the media and courts, however, with the possible exception of Mike Nifong himself, no one has been exposed to as much media-spurred venom and wrath as Crystal Mangum.

It wasn’t enough that she was abused and exploited at the March 13, 2006 Duke Lacrosse beer-guzzling, stripper-ogling, under-aged drinking debauchery, the city of Durham pounced on its first opportunity to destroy her when she was in need of the services of Durham’s finest. On that February 17, 2010 night, being a victim of a domestic assault in which police were called to her apartment by her children who feared for her life, she ended up in jail on a multitude of trumped up charges. Among them was a felony arson charge for clothes set on fire in the bathtub, with Durham police being the only ones with the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime. Her three months of incarceration were interrupted only by the benevolence and generosity of a bail bondsman who had the courage to assist her by satisfying her $100,000 bail. With a mistrial on the most serious arson felony charge, Mangum was convicted on three frivolous and merit-less misdemeanors and sentenced to time served.

Having lost everything after her lengthy time in detention, Crystal Mangum had to virtually start from scratch. With her media-driven notorious past and arson charge, she was unable to find a landlord willing to rent to her, so she entered into a symbiotic relationship with Reginald Daye, a recently laid-off painter who was in arrears with his rent and facing eviction. Their arrangement was for her to help with paying the rent in exchange for her and her children to be allowed to secretly cohabitate in his apartment.

Unfortunately, Mr. Daye had a problem with alcohol and on the evening of April 2, 2011 he had been heavily drinking. An argument between Daye and Mangum ensued and proceeded into the early morning hours of April 3, 2011. It eventually became physical with him dragging her around by her hair and punching her in the face. In self-defense she stabbed him with a paring knife… once in the left torso, and then left the premises.

Daye was awake and walking around his apartment by the time first responders arrived. EMT noted no injuries other than the stab wound to the left torso that had minimal bleeding. They accessed his left upper extremity and found not lesions, contrary to the autopsy report of April 14, 2011… no “defensive wounds.” He was transported to Duke University Medical Center where, in addition to the stab wound, a blood alcohol lab test revealed a level of 296 mg/dL… enough to cause stupor in a normal individual.

When EMT later picked up Crystal Mangum, they noted a cut under her left eye and a swollen lower lip. In addition, at the scene, police recorded finding tufts of brown hair.

Mangum was arrested immediately for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, despite her claims of self-defense, and forensic evidence to backup her claim.

Meanwhile, Reginald Daye, having successful emergency surgery to repair a lesion to the splenic flexure of his colon and a mild lesion to his spleen, required treatment for severe alcohol withdrawal… and was treated with benzodiazepine sedatives to control his symptoms of delirium tremens.

On the evening of the third postoperative day, April 6, 2011, Daye was having respiratory problems and a diagnostic procedure was ordered. However, while being prepped for the procedure, Daye sustained a severe and lengthy anoxic episode that induced a cardiac arrest and brain damage. These events were responsible for Daye lapsing into a deep coma which eventually brought about his elective removal from life support one week later. His brain death had absolutely nothing to do with the stab wound inflicted by Mangum, but rather the lack of oxygenated blood circulating to his brain which was directly responsible for the death of brain cells.

One year later, Mangum remains in jail for acting against Daye in self-defense. Compare this with the case in Sanford, Florida, where George Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed seventeen year old boy because he “looked suspicious”… evidently defined as being a young black boy wearing a hoodie. In this case Zimmerman was obviously the aggressor and was in pursuit of the young black teen who was walking with iced tea and a bag of Skittles while talking on the cell phone with his girlfriend. There was no photographs released of Zimmerman, who alleges to have sustained a broken nose and a bloody wound to the back of his head. There was no indication of facial trauma on the recently released video of his visit to the police station immediately following the incident. There was no indication of any blood from Trayvon Martin on Zimmerman’s clothing; Martin who Zimmerman claims was on top of him when he shot Martin in the chest. Zimmerman’s story of self-defense doesn’t stand up, and yet he has remained free for more than a month since the incident happened.

Why is it then that Crystal Mangum has already served a one year sentence in jail for acting in self-defense in a state which has its own version of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law? The answer is simple… it is because of race. Had the roles in Sanford, Florida been reversed and Zimmerman was an African American and Martin was white, then an arrest would have been made at the scene and the shooter would be in jail today and not awaiting for a grand jury to convene on April 10, 2012 to make a determination.

The problem is in large respect due to mainstream media and its inherent bias. The incident involving Trayvon Martin was of no interest to the mainstream media. It was the social media that brought national and worldwide attention to this outrage, and forced the mainstream media to get involved.

With the circumstances involving Crystal Mangum, she has been so vilified and demonized by the mainstream media that it is nearly impossible for her to get any sympathy from anyone. This is compounded by the NAACP, both locally and nationally, ignoring her plight. Also the African American politicians, especially in Durham, are turning a blind eye and deaf ear to this grave injustice. Senator Floyd McKissick, and Representatives Mickey Michaux and Larry Hall, as well as the entire North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus should be up in arms about the injustices that have plagued Crystal Mangum since February 2010. But they aren’t, and she continues to languish in jail… for a year now.

This is a truly tragic anniversary of incarceration of an innocent person, Crystal Mangum… and it is one that will not be repeated if the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong has anything to say about it. 

A justice system that is already in disrepute?

On February 24, 2012, one week prior to Franklin County Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood handing down his decision to permanently remove Tracey Cline from her position as Durham County district attorney, I gave my observations about Cline’s challenges and her hearing to Barry Saunders, the humorously sarcastic columnist for The News & Observer. Specifically, I told him that a single snowflake had a better chance of remaining intact for a year within the bowels of Hades than Tracey Cline had of being reinstated by Judge Hobgood as the district attorney for Durham County. Mr. Saunders had contacted me days prior to get my take; in particular wanting to know if I felt the attempt to remove Cline had any connection to former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong. I expressed to him that I definitely not only felt that the media, especially The News & Observer, had targeted Ms. Cline because of her congenial relationship with Mr. Nifong, but also because she is an African American.

Then I proceeded to enlighten Mr. Saunders by explaining to him about the Duke Lacrosse/mainstream media connection. Mr. Saunders, like so many others, was unaware that Ms. Rae Evans, the mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans, had worked as an executive for CBS News for more than a decade, that she then founded and is CEO of a highly successful PR firm in Washington, DC, and that her husband is an attorney in a prominent DC law firm. Even CBS, in violation of acceptable journalistic standards, did not disclose this vital relationship when it interviewed Ms. Evans during its numerous and skewed “60 Minutes” news magazine stories devoted to the Duke Lacrosse case. Possibly this unexpected revelation contributed to his decision to omit any of my comments from his column in the March 3, 2012 edition of the newspaper… a revelation that is supported by an article in today’s newspaper of March 4, 2012.

The News & Observer isn’t through with Tracey Cline… not by a long shot. Now that the N&O has succeeded in dethroning Cline of her position as the top Durham prosecutor, it is moving forward with stage two… having Tracey Cline disbarred. The full court press has begun with an article in today’s March 4th paper by pit bull investigative reporter J. Andrew Curliss titled “Lacrosse case had Cline input.” This is the first admission by the media that I am aware of to confess that it has been targeting Cline because of her relationship with the Duke Lacrosse case and Mike Nifong… it reinforces my long held contention that the Nifong connection was the seed that sowed Cline’s media-instigated downfall. The appearance of the Curliss article helps explain why columnist Barry Saunders chose not to ridicule me in his column for my contention that Cline’s removal was related to her association with Mike Nifong. Not only that, but Barry, who I believe does possess some journalistic ethics, would’ve felt compelled to mention Rae Evans’ connection with CBS News had he made mention of me in his column.

The complaint filed by Durham defense attorney Kerry Sutton, which cited a little known, rarely used elastic law, alleged that District Attorney Cline engaged in “conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice which brought her office into disrepute.” In quoting that famed philosopher Yogi Berra, “This is deja vu all over again.” Not unlike 2007 when the North Carolina State Bar heaped all of the woes in the state’s justice system upon Mike Nifong’s handling of the Duke Lacrosse case, Judge Hobgood and the media are scapegoating Ms. Cline by accusing her of bringing the justice system into disrepute. The fact is that the present-day condition of the justice system preceded her, and will continue long after her removal. In Durham itself, for example, Crystal Mangum is being held on a charge of first degree murder for stabbing a man in self-defense… a man well on his way to recovery from the wound, but who mysteriously on the third postoperative day went into a coma which led to his elective removal from life support and his death. This prosecution of Ms. Mangum is vendetta motivated, as was the trumped up 2010 arson-related charges she faced. Crystal Mangum is not a criminal; she committed no crimes in 2010 and 2011; and she should not have served a day of jail time. This is the type of biased and vindictive justice that is responsible for Durham’s ill-repute.

That Durhamian Erick Daniels and Shawn Massey, two African Americans who were wrongly convicted of crimes for which they served more than seven and twelve years respectively, were denied pardons by the Governor’s Executive Clemency Board – pardons which are required before they can receive compensation for their wrongful incarcerations – itself brings the North Carolina justice system into disrepute. In denying the petition of Erick Daniels, Governor Bev Perdue’s General Counsel Mark A. Davis refuted my claim that the determination refusing his pardon was because of racial bias. Instead, Mr. Davis claimed that the Governor’s Office had conducted its own investigation which questioned Daniels’ true innocence… but then added that he was unable to back it up by sharing investigative findings with me due to “confidentiality concerns.” Everyone knows that explanation is nothing more than hogwash. Unless the Governor’s Office is willing to publicly prove otherwise, the impetus for rebuking Daniels’ and Massey’s calls for the pardons is due to the color of their skins.

However, one of the most egregious attempts to infringe upon the judicial rights of the people is playing out now in the U.S. District Court in Greensboro, North Carolina, involving the Dukegate Discrimination Scandal of April 2010. Succinctly, Duke University maliciously harassed, humiliated, and intimidated Sidney B. Harr because he was a Nifong supporter, and then attempted to arrest him because he is an African American. When Harr’s attempts to reasonably resolve the incident in good faith were rebuffed by Duke University, he filed a Pro Se lawsuit against the powerful institution alleging discrimination.

What makes this matter so outrageous is that Duke University would choose to fight rather than amicably settle... especially when one realizes the defense Duke’s legal team has chosen to use. First they claim that the wrong individuals (Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead, Duke Law School Dean David F. Levi, and Duke University General Counsel Pamela Bernard) were named as defendants in Harr’s complaint. However, this is through no fault of plaintiff Harr, as he tried at the scene of the incident and for months following to learn the name of the individual(s) responsible for his mistreatment. Other than “the building manager” as quoted by the security guard, and “the Duke Police,” Harr could not learn the identity of the ringleader or other conspirators in the plot against him. Had the actions against Harr been proper, appropriate and above board, then surely someone would have accepted responsibility for them. Harr has the conviction to stand by all actions and statements he makes and take full responsibility for them. Because the intrigue against Harr was so malicious, despicable, and corrupt, no one at Duke University wants to accept responsibility for it. The fact that Harr sent letters to Brodhead and Levi initially, and then included Bernard in all of the subsequent communications definitely affixes legal liability to them.

The second defense used by Duke is that it is immune from discrimination complaints because it is a private institution and not a state one. F. W. Woolworths was not a state agency when it refused lunch counter service to African Americans back in the day when the civil rights wars in the Jim Crow south were at their zenith. This is what Duke University attorneys want the people to believe… that Duke is protected when it discriminates based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual preference, etc. Without a legitimate defense, Duke is trying its best to stave off an inevitable defeat in court by not allowing the case to go to trial. In other words, Duke is trying to get the Courts to do its dirty work for it. Currently, the case hinges on a Motion to Dismiss filed by the Duke defense.

Because Harr filed as a Pro Se plaintiff, Duke University is unable to undermine his legal representation, a tact which would have been first used if Harr had retained an attorney. Also, since Harr is Pro Se, the Duke defendants cannot rely on any legal consultation to bleed him dry financially. Duke defendants’ only hopes to prevail, with their non-existent defense, against Harr is to prevent the case from going to court. Everything is riding on the defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. And Duke University is doing everything in its power to replicate the courtroom course that took place when former lab director Brian Meehan filed a lawsuit against the company which fired him. Meehan, whose lab was used by Prosecutor Mike Nifong in the Duke Lacrosse case, was denied the opportunity to have his wrongful dismissal case heard in court when a judge found in favor of a defense motion to dismiss.

This is the strategy that is being used by Dixie T. Wells, of the Greensboro law firm of Ellis & Winters, LLP. I do not fault the firm for using the “Motion to Dismiss” tactic, as it is available to the defendants and is the only realistic chance for them to prevail. Ellis & Winters, LLP is a business and its priority is its bottom line. Unlike the ideal of a prosecutor in a criminal case whose ultimate goal is to seek justice, the attitude in the realm of civil lawsuits is “justice be damned.” If Ellis & Winters, LLP gives Lady Justice a black eye and defiles Christian morals, it is no big deal as long as the outcome results in a win for its clients.

That Duke University retained a Greensboro law firm to represent it, gives it an upper hand as its legal staff has undoubtedly had dealings with the U.S. magistrate judges. What brings this legal matter into disrepute is the fact that Magistrate Judge P. Trevor Sharp would purposely make false statements (lies) about facts of the case in a manner that is willfully prejudicial in favor of the Duke defendants. Magistrate Judge P. Trevor Sharp’s recommendation to the U.S. District Court to accept the defendants’ Motion to Dismiss is now under consideration despite the fact that it contains serious false and misleading statements that Judge Sharp has refused to correct. In an attempt to clarify the facts of the case, Harr filed a motion that the defendants’ Motion to Dismiss be heard in court… a motion which defense attorney Dixie Wells vehemently opposed. The Duke University defendants want the U.S. District Court judge to make a ruling based upon a recommendation that contains blatantly false and misleading statements that go directly to the core of the case. Duke defendants do not want the Court to rule on the Motion to Dismiss based upon the truths of the case.

If the Duke defendants prevail in its Motion to Dismiss, it would set a detrimental precedent of allowing the big and powerful corporations and individuals to keep meritorious complaints against them by ordinary individuals from being heard in court. Individuals with legitimate grievances should not be deprived of the opportunity to have their cases heard in court. Justice should be available to everyone regardless of their class, color, or financial standing.

One thing that the Duke University defendants have been able to rely upon thus far has been the prejudicial silence of the mainstream media. Despite awareness of the Dukegate Discrimination Scandal of April 2010, the media has, in concert, remained silent about it… keeping it hidden from the public. The mainstream media was informed about the discrimination lawsuit against Duke that was filed in April 2011, and keeping true to form, has purposely ignored it, as well. That the media has chosen to collude with Duke University to keep the Dukegate Scandal under wraps puts the mainstream media in violation of important journalism ethics.

Unfortunately, with the engineering of her successful removal from office, the media is now pushing for Tracey Cline’s disbarment; this after finally admitting that its vendetta motive against her was related to her role in the Duke Lacrosse case. Instead of generating news stories and taking sides, the media should focus on objectively reporting about them… all important and relevant stories, even the ones that might cause embarrassment to the big and powerful. Actions by the mainstream media threaten to embed it, alongside the justice system, in disrepute with the public. All Tar Heelians expect and deserve better from the justice system and the mainstream media. 

Media kowtows to Carpetbagger families

Note: This Flog is approximately eight minutes in length, and requires audio.

LINK: http://www.justice4nifong.com/direc/flog/flog5.html

It is shameful the power that the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants continue to hold over the mainstream media. The most recent disgraceful example can be found in the July 12, 2011 online article posted on wral.com titled “Father gains custody of Duke Lacrosse accuser’s children.”

One wonders how such a topic could once again focus on expressing the innocence of the three Duke Lacrosse defendants… but it does. WRAL follows the lead of many recent Duke lacrosse related stories in misleading the public with regards to the source of the defendants’ innocence. Initially, wral.com, and other media outlets stated that North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, in his April 11, 2007 promulgation, found the three partygoing defendants “innocent” of sexual abuse charges related to the March 2006 beer-guzzling, stripper ogling bacchanal.

It wasn’t until this blog site repeatedly pummeled the media with the fact that the attorney general belongs to the executive branch of government, has no judiciary powers, and is incapable of the legal pronouncement of “innocent” or “guilt,” for that matter, that media types stopped naming the attorney general as the source of the boys’ exoneration.

Time and time again this blog enlightened readers, and e-mails informed media-types that, as former Campbell University law school professor Tony Baker stated, “Only a jury, or judge in lieu of a jury” can decide innocence or guilt.

So the media continues to morph its statement regarding the innocence of the Duke Lacrosse triad by stating, quote: “state officials (plural) later declared the players innocent,” unquote. This is a flagrant, bald-faced, in-your-face, two-faced lie. Fabrication. Prevarication. A blatant misrepresentation meant to deceive the public… or at least the vast majority who do not bother to engage their gray matter and are easily susceptible to Jedi mind-tricks.

By using the plural when citing “state official” wral is trying to give credibility to its claim that the boys were found innocent. I have spoken to media-types about this very issue in the past, and the only source given for the proclamation of innocence has been A.G. Roy Cooper.

Now, although the article was attributed to reporter Erin Hartness and Matthew Burns, the web editor, I doubt very seriously that either one of them is responsible for the misinformation about who was responsible for proclaiming the Duke Lacrosse defendants “innocent.” There is probably policy in place at WRAL, as well as in other media outlets, as how to phrase the innocence statement. Just as there most assuredly is a policy in place to bring up the alleged “innocence” of the Duke Lacrosse defendants whenever an article even remotely touches on someone who is somehow related to the Duke Lacrosse case.
Not only that, but you can bet that certain topics related to the Duke Lacrosse case are strictly off limits. For example, the fact that the three defendants and their avaricious attorneys shook down Duke University for $20 million each and are seeking an additional $10 mil from the city of Durham, is never broached.

Likewise, Reade Seligmann’s alleged failure to pay close to $7 million in taxes is kept hush-hush by the media.

The expunged record of Collin Finnerty’s assault charge against two men he mistook for being homosexual in Washington, D.C. is glossed over.

And the fact that Dave Evans’ mother, Rhea Evans, worked for more than a decade as an executive at CBS News, was and is never disclosed… not even during the CBS broadcasts of “60 Minutes” during which the Duke Lacrosse case was featured, and in which Ms. Evans and the Carpetbagger parents of the two other Duke Lacrosse defendants were interviewed.

It is no doubt that Ms. Evans’ connections with the media, and her professional role as a highly successful founder of a Washington D.C. public relations firm have served the Carpetbagger Jihadist’s agenda well. How else can you explain wral.com’s perpetual and false assertion that “state officials later declared the players innocent.”

Instead of continuing to consent to the whims of the Carpetbagger Jihadist agenda, it is high time for wral and all media sources to begin reporting truthfully and objectively when it comes to stories with even the slightest connection to the Duke Lacrosse case.
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Comments in conclusion about the shameful “so-called” arson case against Crystal Mangum

On Friday, December 17, 2010, a twelve member jury in a Durham criminal courtroom mercifully put an end to yet another legal fiasco hosted by the State of North Carolina. The trial against Crystal Mangum for felony arson and a spate of misdemeanors, culminated a ten month legal process which began amid much fanfare in the media. As is often the case, the media gave little in the way of attention with regards to the conclusion. And this is not to say that the prosecution lost, for they were actually big winners in the verdict delivered on Friday. Because Ms. Mangum was not convicted of the most serious charge, she escaped the probability of more time behind bars, but she was the big loser in this shameful episode of Tar Heel juris prudence.

Make no mistake about it… the case against Crystal Mangum is unlike any other case involving domestic violence in the state’s history. Actions by the first responders to the 911 call made by Crystal’s children, rulings by the magistrate and judges involved in the case, the prosecution’s charges, and the featherweight defense put forth on Ms. Mangum’s behalf were all part of a grand scheme of retribution against individuals who had any part in prosecuting the case against the Duke Lacrosse defendants. Anyone with a scintilla of common sense knows that Crystal Mangum’s case was not handled like similar such cases, and they also know why… Crystal Mangum was the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case (or as labeled by the media, “false accuser”).

The power that the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants hold within the state is embarrassingly immense. Nationally, these families of wealth, status, and privilege have always exerted tremendous sway on the media (the main conduit being through former CBS News executive Rae Forker Evans – mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans), and they used it effectively against Ms. Mangum.

There is no doubt about the vindictive nature of the Carpetbagger families against anyone they perceived to have had a hand in the prosecution which stemmed from an incident in which their sons attended a beer-guzzling, stripper ogling party held in a Buchanan Street house on Duke property in March 2006. The Carpetbagger Jihad against former prosecutor Mike Nifong et al. was officially unleashed during a “60 Minutes” interview in which Ms. Evans promised that “he (Mike Nifong) would pay every day for the rest of his life” (for essentially having the audacity to do his job which happened to include charging their party-going boys with a sexual assault). The city of Durham, the state of North Carolina, and the media enthusiastically embraced this call for vengeance, and pursued, with relish, the destruction of Crystal Mangum, Mike Nifong, and others. And with regards to Ms. Mangum, they were successful, but not quite to the degree in which they had hoped or envisioned.

The arrest and slew of serious charges against Ms. Mangum were made for the purpose of justifying a high bail. Believing that the likelihood of Mangum bonding out was nil, it was the intent of the prosecution to drag out its case over several years while Ms. Mangum languished in jail awaiting trial. (This was the same successful strategy employed by prosecutor Bill Wolfe against defendant James Arthur Johnson who was incarcerated for 39 months before the case against him came to trial.) As in the Johnson case, after Mangum had served a couple of years in jail the prosecutors planned to offer her a plea deal to confess to a felony in exchange for “time served,” the threat being that she could face many more years in jail if convicted. After serving 88 days in the Durham Detention Center a benevolent and generous bail bondsman placed bond which resulted in Ms. Mangum being transferred to house arrest. With Mangum no longer incarcerated, and with prosecutors losing their major bargaining chip to reach a plea deal, they decided to move ahead with the flimsy case against her. Although the prosecutor would have liked to have kept Mangum locked up for two or three years, they realized that they would have to settle for three months. Their goal was now to seek a resolution that would place them and their agents in he best possible light and free of any subsequent civil legal entanglements.

With the three month incarceration following her February 17, 2010 arrest, severe personal damage was sustained by Ms. Mangum. Prior to her arrest Ms. Mangum worked full time, she had custody of her three children, she was enrolled as a graduate student at North Carolina Central University in the Masters program, she rented an apartment for her family, she had amassed personal property for herself and her children, she was able to help take care of her parents, and she was a financially independent individual in society, attempting to put her past Duke Lacrosse history behind her. The aforementioned she lost due to her arrest and three month incarceration, although Judge Abraham Jones did reinstate for Ms. Mangum the custody of her children.

I am of the opinion that the police, most likely Officer Tyler, started the fire in the bathtub, not Crystal or her ex-boyfriend. Police, prosecutors, lab technicians, investigators have often gone afoul of the law in order to win a conviction. In the James Arthur Johnson case, for example, the prosecutor planned to introduce two eyewitnesses to the crime after his main witness retracted his initial statement implicating Johnson. The two “so-called eyewitnesses” both had connections with the police department, and prosecutors discarded this strategy once the NAACP brought media attention to the case. In the Floyd Brown case, prosecutors came up with an alleged verbatim confession from a man who mental health experts testified was too retarded to have made. In the Gregory Taylor case prosecutor Tom Ford used perjured testimony procured through plea deals to convict an innocent man of murder. For the police to set blaze to clothes in a bathtub in a controlled setting in order to concoct a serious felony charge is not much of a stretch.

Why do I believe that police set the fire? The following reasons are but a few:
(1) Police made no attempt to put out the fire. All that was required was to turn on water in the bathtub. That is what you, me, or anyone possessing a modicum of commons sense and sanity would naturally do.
(2) Police had the opportunity to stage the fire after Officer Tyler ordered everyone out of the house because he “smelled smoke.” That is most likely when the fire was set.
(3) With the large number of police on scene, no one saw the bathtub fire actually being set, and police cannot provide a sensible narrative about what transpired from the time they arrived to when the fire was allegedly discovered.
(4) Police and prosecutors sought the most serious charge, first degree arson, when conditions did not merit it... the structure suffered on flame damage.
(5) Police, firemen, and prosecutors did not provide a list of clothing articles which allegedly filled the bathtub or the number of articles damaged by the fire. Are we to presume that a boyfriend who occasionally spends the night at the apartment has a bathtub full amount of clothing there?
(6) The fire report contains no documentation that there was any structural flame damage, only smoke damage to the building (i.e. the box for flame damage to the structure was not checked). I was told that some fire reports which I requested were confidential and I was denied access to them. Those fire reports which were delivered to me were vague. One fire report also exaggerated by stating that the fire department responded to what police described as a “structure fire with a subject trapped.” I believe that the firemen were misled by Officer Tyler.
(7) Although I was not present at the trial, it is my understanding that Judge Jones declared at the beginning of the trial that he would not allow the Durham Police Department to be put on trial. Why even make such a statement unless he had reason to believe the likelihood that the police had a hand in the fire and/or other misconduct?
(8) Police, especially Officer Tyler, realized when they arrived on a call to the residence of Crystal Mangum that they had an opportunity to somehow ensnare her into the criminal justice system. They seized upon the opportunity to the extent that they completely ignored the domestic complaint which triggered the 911 call. In other words, they ignored the fact that Crystal Mangum was repeatedly struck in the face by her ex-boyfriend and that her ex-boyfriend initiated the physical contact (he was never charged.) The media, as well as agencies and groups against domestic violence, kept silent regarding this.

The above are but a few of the glaring reasons why I believe police set the fire and why I have serious doubts as to Ms. Mangum’s involvement in it. And I am not alone in my beliefs. Media-types are aware that the charges against Ms. Mangum were bogus and directly related to a stealth vendetta strategy spawned by the Carpetbagger Jihad. That is why after the initial charges were made and subsequent stories about the case (especially the trial) were muted. For example, if you go to wral.com, the online site of CBS affiliate WRAL – TV 5, you will find a plethora of articles about Mangum’s arrest and events leading up to the trial, but no coverage about the trial itself, or the outcome. I understand that the shameful case made by prosecutors against Mangum was such an embarrassment that the media did all it could to shield it from the public. Coverage by the media was purposely sparse to keep from affording the public a chance to glimpse the cockamamie case against Mangum. And what coverage there was about the trial focused in large part on defining Ms. Mangum as the “False Duke Lacrosse Accuser” (what a way to assure that Ms. Mangum receives a fair trial). Many of the stories, including those by Associated Press, continue to mislead the readers by stating that the Duke Lacrosse defendants were declared innocent. (As I have written for some time, this is misleading because the defendants were not found legally innocent. Roy Cooper, the Attorney General had no authority and was overreaching when he declared the boys innocent. Cooper did so at the urging of defense attorney Joe Cheshire’s underling Brad Bannon… and of course the media has latched onto it for the purpose of repeatedly stating that the boys were “declared to be innocent.”) What the media (including the Associated Press) consistently uses when it drags Mike Nifong into any conversation about the Duke Lacrosse case, is that the North Carolina State Bar convicted him of twenty ethical charges. What charges?… the media doesn’t even name one. Furthermore the average person on the street can not only name one so-called ethical charge against Mike Nifong, they can not even give a reason for Mr. Nifong’s disbarment. And remember that although the media persistently talks about Mike Nifong’s disbarment, they never inform the public that Mike Nifong is the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the State Bar since its inception in 1933. Keep in mind that the people in the media are extremely intelligent. When it comes to Mike Nifong and the Duke Lacrosse case the media aim is to keep the people ignorant… and they have been able to mislead those in the public who are not savvy to their ways of bending, molding, fabricating, spinning and distorting the truth.

Regarding the defense of Ms. Mangum, there is no doubt in my mind that the public defender initially assigned to the case was working more to achieve an outcome that was most favorable to the prosecution. After all, they are both state employees. I believe that the goal of Mangum’s public defender was to have her plead guilty to a felony arson charge in exchange for a sentence of “time served.” At least, by going to trial represented by a private defense attorney, Mani Dexter, Ms. Mangum now has only misdemeanor charges on her record. The major problem that I have with the defense was that (to my knowledge) there was no attempt to obtain a change of venue. As I blogged earlier, this is one case that screamed for it… just like the case against James Arthur Johnson should have had a change of venue from the media inspired racially divided city of Wilson. The judge in the Johnson case denied the motion for venue change, and I am apt to believe that the same would have happened had Mani Dexter, Mangum’s attorney, sought one. I believe that Ms. Dexter’s defense was hampered significantly by rulings from the bench… rulings which may have thwarted an aggressive defense. But I feel that she could have more effectively challenged the misdemeanor charges. Instead of calling one witness, I believe that she should have called several, including Mangum’s ex-boyfriend, and Mangum’s older children. She should have thoroughly investigated and brought before the court the alleged “injured property” (clothing and alleged damage to the car). The defense of Ms. Mangum was featherweight, but the prosecution’s case against her had the weight of straw. A dedicated, determined, competent defense held in a court out of Duke University’s sphere of influence would have trounced the prosecution’s case and resulted in an acquittal on all charges, I strongly believe.

The Durham based jury did its duty by convicting Ms. Mangum on all of the misdemeanor charges against her, even though the charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor convolutedly relied on a guilty finding in the arson charge… a charge with which Mangum was not convicted. In other words, what is the jury’s basis for finding Crystal Mangum guilty of contributing to the delinquency of her children? Even Judge Jones did not find the charge credible as he reinstated custody to Ms. Mangum of her children. Although the jury deadlocked on the most serious arson charge, it delivered for the prosecution by convicting her on the misdemeanor charges. With those convictions, the police, firemen, prosecutors, and the state are absolved from any future civil prosecution for wrongful incarceration or civil rights violations.

Now Durham County prosecutor Mark McCullough, whose passionate courtroom oratory about his concerns for Ms. Mangum’s children’s safety when the fire was allegedly started, coyly stated to the press that he will take a month to consider re-trying Crystal Mangum in the future. I fail to see McCullough’s concern for Ms. Mangum’s children by a continued attempt to put the mother of the children they love in jail for years based on trumped up charges. Alas, the Carpetbagger Jihad has no consideration for children other than their own and those of the higher social class. Take this to the bank. McCullough’s bravado about considering to re-try Crystal Mangum is empty. There are a number of reasons why. First and foremost, doing so would risk exposing wrongdoing and misconduct by the Durham Police Department. Secondly, even in a Duke University dominated city, a conviction against the “false Duke Lacrosse accuser” could not be reach… in fact, the jurors polled nine to three in favor of acquittal on the charge. And third, the media is not supportive of the prospect of lingering coverage of a bogus charge which they know is based solely on Mangum’s role in the Duke Lacrosse case. A factor which I would not expect to entertain McCullough’s consideration is the tremendous expense and waste of taxpayer money in re-trying Ms. Mangum. If he thought he had a reasonable chance of prevailing at a second trial, expense would not be an obstacle, and the public, which would be unaware of the waste of their taxpayer dollars in doing so, would not object. But, this is all moot, as there will be no re-trial.

Finally, with regards to Jackie Wagstaff, I believe that her utterance of “this is ridiculous” was not intended to travel any further than to the individual seated next to her and to whom she was addressing. However, her emotional investment in the case inadvertently and unintentionally resulted in her blurting out the comment at a decibel level higher than intended. I believe the judge’s ten day sentence was extreme, especially with it lasting over the holidays, and I am hopeful that he will take the initiative to drastically reduce it. 24 hours housed in the jail is more than enough to make a point. (And was what I perceive to be the severity of her sentence due to Wagstaff’s position with regards to the Duke Lacrosse case?)

My final major conclusions:
(1) Ms. Mangum is fortunate to be freed at the conclusion of this trial;
(2) the charges and prosecution against Ms. Mangum were due to her role in the Duke Lacrosse case;
(3) the arson case against Ms. Mangum was bogus, and the fire most likely was started by Officer Tyler;
(4) the defense should have filed a motion for a change of venue, which would have most likely resulted in a trial held on a more level playing field;
(5) the media’s coverage was typically biased for anything related to Mike Nifong and Duke Lacrosse case; and
(6) the prosecution is satisfied with the trial’s outcome and will not risk a re-trial.

The one important thing to take away from this trial is that discrimination from all quarters exist against individuals who are supporters of Mike Nifong and/or whose opinions are not favorable and sympathetic towards the Duke Lacrosse defendants. It behooves people who fall into this category to be aware of this when they encounter a situation which might attract attention or authorities. Examples are Crystal Mangum’s treatment at the February 17, 2010 incident, and Ms. Wagstaff’s severe contempt of court punishment. From my own experience, I can attest to the discrimination and my near-arrest on the Duke University campus which was appalling. The Carpetbagger Jihad influence weighs heavily in North Carolina and throughout the United States, and that is truly shameful.

Duke needs its image fixed more than Vick

I found a humorous article in The News & Observer of December 4, 2010, titled “Agency will help Vick fix image: French/West/Vaughan signs NFL star/ex-con.” First and foremost, NFL quarterback Michael Vick would not need to address image problems if it were not for the media. Prime example is that the subtitle calls him an “ex-con.” The media, without regard to the influence it welds over the mindless public, has incited hatred against Michael Vick for his role in a dog-fighting venture since his involvement first became known. As a result of public backlash against the talented quarterback, the judicial system handed him a sentence which is undoubtedly more harsh than those routinely given. Despite the fact that he maintained himself in good condition and served his sentence with dignity, NFL team owners avoided him like the plague because of the venom still evident at the release of his confinement. All of the owners were intent on blacklisting Vick, even the Carolina Panthers who lacked an experience and tested player at this most critical position. At the urging of the then Philadelphia Eagle QB Donovan McNabb, the Eagles eventually signed Vick as a third string backup, behind McNabb and the second stringer Kevin Kolb. Kolb, like the Carolina QBs, had very little playing time under his belt.

When given a chance to play due to an injury to Kolb and McNabb’s earlier departure for the rival Washington Redskins, Michael Vick performed spectacularly in winning games and the starting nod. But as soon as Vick suffered an injury to his ribcage when sandwiched between two defenders on the opponent’s goal line, he was unable to perform in several subsequent games, and the sports media started declaring that a quarterback controversy existed in the City of Brotherly Love. That was so ridiculous, especially after it was evident that, if anything, Vick played smarter and better than he had prior to his incarceration. There was no doubt in my mind that he would be on the field as soon as his injuries healed enough to allow him to do so. Because of Vick’s contributions, the Eagles sit atop of it’s division, a sure bet to make the playoffs, while the Panthers, whose owners got hoodwinked by the media into passing on the chance of a lifetime to acquire one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history, languish in the cellar with their shot at making the playoffs shot.

His exciting play, community service in bringing to the fore the immorality of dog fighting, and dignified composure have drowned out his harshest critics, and the media has suspended its assaults on him, at least for the time being. It was the same sort of demonization that the media used against former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, however, in Nifong’s case the criticism has been excessive, pervasive, unrelenting, and downright cruel. This is no doubt due to the influence of Rae Evans, the mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans. Ms. Evans was employed with CBS News as an executive for more than a decade, a fact that CBS has refused to disclose on shows such as “60 Minutes” which featured interviews with her. The media tries to keep the public ignorant of this relationship in an effort to allow the broadcasts about Mike Nifong and the Duke Lacrosse case to appear to be objective and unbiased… which they most certainly aren’t. Mike Nifong, unlike former governor Mike Easley, has never been saddled with a conviction on a felony charge, so the media can’t label Nifong an ex-con like it did with Michael Vick. Instead, the deplorable action taken by the media was to brand Nifong as the “disgraced” former district attorney. The “disgraced” title conferred upon Nifong by the media, especially The News & Observer was a biased bit of editorializing which steered many of the mindless to conclude in their "minds" that Nifong conducted himself in a manner that was disgraceful… and nothing could be further from the truth.

When it comes to reporting on individuals involved in intrigue or controversy, the approach taken by the media lacks conformity. For example, the newspaper article referred to Michael Vick as an “ex-con,” but I doubt that you will ever see that reference in conjunction with an article or broadcast about former governor Mike Easley. And although the deals he made as governor enriched himself and his wife, and would be considered by the reasonable person to be more disgraceful than the criticism leveled at Mike Nifong, it is unlikely that Mike Easley will be referred to in the media as the “disgraced” former NC governor.

The N & O article by staff writer David Ranii begins by describing the contract that the Raleigh communications agency has with Vick as being high-profile and controversial, however he omits stating that it’s lucrative… to the point financial terms were not disclosed. What I find most unbelievable about the article is the contention that Rick French, founder and CEO of French/West/Vaughan had to do some serious soul searching before agreeing accept Vick as a client. I’m sure that the deliberations in his mind could not have lasted more than a fraction of a nanosecond. Why should French be wrestling with whether or not to accept Vick’s money? Believe me, he didn’t. Then the article goes on about how his employees and clients would feel about his representing Vick. Are you kidding? Of course the employees would be thrilled, if for no other reason than that lucrative contracts help ensure employment and keep layoffs at bay.

According to the article, French would not have been willing to represent Michael Vick if he was only interested in hiring a PR firm simply to “window-dress what had transpired.” Well, that is precisely the reason that he hired French’s company. It seems to me that Rick French is more concerned about his image than his client’s. That is undoubtedly the reason he waited until now to announce that Michael Vick was his client. Because Vick’s stock was rising in boardrooms, as was stated in the article, French felt it was safe and timely to reveal that he had signed Vick as a client back in July 2010. Because of Vick’s spectacular play on the gridiron and acceptance by the public in general, French can now use Vick to help promote his PR business, which is the purpose of the article in The News & Observer and his planned public announcement. Now had Vick’s return to the football field been a bust and his detractors vocal and unforgivable, you can bet that French’s relationship with Michael Vick would be, and remain, under wraps.

Bottom line, Michael Vick is doing more in the realm of PR for French/West/Vaughan than is vice-versa.

If French wants to do some significant public relations work, then I would suggest that he approaches Duke University. The university certainly has the funds to be able to afford to retain French’s PR firm. One thing Duke has going for it is the media, which suppresses newsworthy stories that put the institution in a bad light. It’s blatant discrimination against me on April 14, 2010 because I held beliefs that did not conform to their institutional anti-Nifong sentiment was not reported although the media was alerted about it. And the media was instrumental in assisting Duke University in shoveling the appearance of all wrongdoing associated with the Duke Lacrosse case onto its prosecutor, Mike Nifong. The media kept the public in the dark about the surprise blitzkrieg-style razing of the Duke Lacrosse party house until after bulldozers had made considerable progress in bringing it down. So, if Rick French is able to secure a PR position for his firm with Duke University, he can count on unyielding assistance from the media.

Although I give The News & Observer some credit for writing an article about the inherent financial abuse at Duke University recently, it certainly did not go far enough. A December 3, 2010 article by staff writer Eric Ferreri titled “Buddy, can you spare $729,749?,” is misleading and minimizes the extent of legalized corruption at the university. To begin with, the headline, which is below the fold on the front page of the local news section, is vague and gives no hint about the story’s subject matter. The subtitle of the article, “Duke students protest bonuses,” is not quite as ambiguous as the headline but is still without direction. The article gives two examples of executives receiving bonuses… Neal Triplett, president of a management company who received $729,749 and Victor Dzau, chancellor of the Duke health system who received $983,654. Yet, the headline includes the bonus with the smaller dollar amount… minimizing the runaway avarice at Duke by the media. The other option would have been to combine the two bonuses for an amount of $1,713,403.

As is, no doubt the case, the bonuses referenced in the article, are probably on the lower spectrum of bonuses received by executives, bigwigs, and head honchos at Duke University… and there are also many in the upper echelons of the university who have contracts with bonuses that equal to or exceed the bloated salaries that the executives set for themselves to begin with. Duke’s operations are not unlike that of the failed financial institutions, such as AIG, which led the way into the recession in which we are now mired. With Bush-era tax cuts, deregulation of agencies and policies in place to protect against financial abuse, and other measures undertaken to enrich the wealthiest at the expense of the masses, individuals at Duke have made a killing… and continue to do so. The media paid a little lip service to the problem with its article, but it is not committed to helping make a positive change.

Now, I do not know what a chancellor of the Duke health system does, but I do not believe that it is deserving of an annual compensation package worth more than $2.2 million. Even a healthy financial environment does not justify unsightly salaries and bonuses that the head honchos give themselves. However, with the bad economy dropping the value of Duke’s endowment a whopping 24 percent, and as pay for the people who actually do the work at Duke is frozen and jobs are eliminated in order to meet the annual operating budgets, the bonuses of the head honchos at Duke continues to rise at a fevered pitch. People who were forced to accept buyouts or were let go while their positions were then eliminated, not only are more likely to result in a lessening of the quality of services provided, but also contribute to the swelling in the ranks of the unemployed. In addition, generating revenue to help sate the boundless greed of the Duke hierarchy has forced increases in intuition for the school’s students. As Amy Laura Hall, a professor of Christian ethics stated with regards to the bonuses given to top execs when the economy is bad and everyone else is asked to tighten their belts and make sacrifices, “I think that’s obscene.”

Rick, I think that Michael Vick can take care of himself. Now for all of the executives who are receiving obscene bonuses at Duke University amid layoffs, job eliminations, frozen salaries for the actual workers, and increased tuition paid by the students, the same cannot be said. I think that you could probably do a better job of window dressing for the university than its current spokesperson Michael Schoenfeld, who defined handing out a business card as “solicitation” in order to try and defend the premeditated, malicious, and unwarranted discrimination against me earlier this year. And with the media working with you, there should be no concerns about any negative publicity for your company.

Protection against the consequences of free speech and opinion are not guaranteed

One of the tenets upon which our country was founded, and upon which we most highly cherish, is the freedom of speech… the right to express one’s opinion. We, Americans, may surely speak our minds on any number of issues without fear of incarceration or persecution by the government, but we must deal with the consequences of our expression. Neither the Bill of Rights nor the Constitution protects citizens from any retaliation that may be lodged against someone for speaking their mind, expressing their beliefs, or, unfortunately, even having an opinion. Because potential retribution looms for whoever possesses or subscribes to an unpopular position on a controversial topic, it tends to mute contrary expression and/or public dialog on that particular subject. Bottom line is that the potential for suffering consequences for certain thoughts and opinions are routinely kept in check out of fear of being subjected to backlash.

This matter came to the nation’s awareness recently when NPR (National Public Radio) commentator Juan Williams stated during an interview with Fox News that he was uncomfortable whenever he saw Muslims dressed in their traditional garb on airplanes. NPR executives viewed this comment as being unethical and undermining his credibility. Personally, I do not share the same phobia as Mr. Williams regarding Muslims traveling by air, and I did not find his remarks to be offensive. He was merely stating an opinion of his, which I felt had no relevance to his credibility. NPR should not have focused on this benign, but candid expression of Mr. Williams. Certainly, he should not have been fired… at least in my opinion.

Fear of retaliation for taking a position is very real in this country and can be best exemplified by the Nifong-phobia. There is no doubt in my mind that the majority of intelligent and sensible people in North Carolina are of the opinion that Mike Nifong was selectively and unjustly disbarred (especially in consideration that he is the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar since its inception in 1933). However, the play given to the topic by the mainstream media and the punitive, draconian, and irrational treatment of former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong by the Attorney General’s Office and other state agencies, makes it clear to the well-informed that to take a side with Mr. Nifong is to possibly invite serious and catastrophic results… the most feared being loss of employment. There are many attorneys who are of the opinion that Mr. Nifong was unjustly disbarred, but they are not going to publicly say so because they realize to do so would put their license to practice law in serious jeopardy by the unregulated and out of control State Bar. Civil rights leaders and religious leaders in their pulpits avoid taking on the injustice to Mr. Nifong out of fear of losing financing and donations, support, and/or tithe.

What sets aside the Mike Nifong issue from many others in the arena of public discourse is the fact that the media has defined the debate by taking a position and pushing it on the public. This drive to destroy Mr. Nifong was spearheaded by Rae Evans, mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans. She held an executive position with CBS News for more than a decade, but this has never been disclosed during her appearances on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program, and the media has been hush-hush on the topic, as well. The PR and media blitz by the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse families have produced a jihad against Mr. Nifong that is complete and without comparison. So successful has the media been in defining what opinions and expressions about Mr. Nifong and the Duke Lacrosse case are acceptable, and what positions carry untold risks, that the state’s director of the American Civil Liberties Union is afraid to express her opinion on the topic. A couple of years ago at a public debate on freedom of speech at NCSU, I asked the ACLU’s Katy Parker, to opine in writing about Mr. Nifong’s disbarment, specifically asking if his actions were as egregious as other prosecutors who had not been disbarred. She was aware that I was a supporter of Mr. Nifong, and when I handed her the questionnaire, I asked her if she was going to fill it out. She responded, “It depends on the questions.” Evidently, she did not like the questions as she did not respond (I even enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope). But neither did the three other law school professors at event to whom I personally gave the questionnaire.

This is very telling, because an agency like the ACLU which is willing to protect the civil and constitutional rights of Nazis and Ku Klux Klanners is afraid to go up against the powerful Carpetbaggers by expressing its opinions about Mr. Nifong’s disbarment. Mr. Nifong’s unjust disbarment is a topic that is even off-limits at law schools. Law professors, even with tenure, are unwilling to breach the topic in a public forum. It is evident why the subject of Mr. Nifong is institutionally and universally taboo… because Mike Nifong’s disbarment was selective and unjust. This is a conclusion that anyone using a modicum of rational thought and knowledge of the issue would reach.

Elected public officials, who are compromised by their lust for public approval, display absolutely no courage when it comes to taking a public stand on the issue of Mike Nifong’s disbarment. Although the First Amendment protects their right to express an opinion on the subject, they undoubtedly act like politicians by cloaking their unwillingness to discuss the issue by pleading that the protocol in place restricts their ability to comment.

The heat surrounding the topic of Mike Nifong’s disbarment is so high that even having a view that is supportive of Mr. Nifong can lead to mistreatment. It happened to me at Duke University School of Law in April 14, 2010, when I attended an event which was open to the public. I was kicked off the campus, for no reason other than being a supporter of justice for Mr. Nifong. The attack against me by Duke was premeditated, malicious, and unwarranted, and illustrates the depth of contempt that has been generated by the media and the state against Mr. Nifong and his supporters. A university, especially one of Duke’s stature - not to mention that it is law school, should be a beacon for independent thought, opinion, and ideas. Debate on differing views should be welcome in such an academic environment. I’m sure that, generally speaking, it is on the Duke campus. But, again, when it comes to the topic of Mr. Nifong, open expression or even privately held opinion supportive of Mr. Nifong is squelched. Because I believe that Mr. Nifong was selectively and unjustly disbarred I was nearly arrested.

Tar Heelians, especially in Durham, know the score and are timid when it comes to speaking out on behalf of Mike Nifong. They realize that doing so could cost them a promotion, opportunity, or even their jobs and livelihood. The vindictive reach of the Carpetbagger Jihad is long, strong, and venomous. That is what makes members of the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong special. Each individual member has the conviction, and courage to back it up, to lend his/her name and face to the cause of obtaining justice for Mr. Nifong. Justice for Mike Nifong can be defined by action on part of the North Carolina State Bar to unilaterally and unconditionally reinstate Mike Nifong’s license to practice law in the state without restrictions. And that is the goal of our committee, which has been in existence since June 2008.

Like Juan Williams, I have experienced backlash because of my position in support of Mr. Nifong… discrimination against me and my near-arrest on the Duke University campus in April 2010, being one of the more recent. Because of the fear of retaliation, the Powers-That-Be, especially with the assistance of the media, will continue to determine what opinions the citizens of this state are considered acceptable to harbor and/or express. For those who elect to give an opinion that is not held in the mainstream, brace yourself and prepare to suffer retribution. Keep in mind that expression of opinion is free, but you oft times will end up paying the consequences for doing so.

The Nifongs are a class act… the same can’t be said for “Newsday”

According to the May 24, 2010 posted article by writers Joseph Mallia and Melanie Lefkowitz of Newsday titled “Collin Finnerty, once falsely accused, graduates college,” Cy Gurney (wife of former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong) when she was told Newsday was calling about Collin Finnerty's graduation and homecoming, said, "I think that's wonderful. I can't speak for my husband, and I wasn't involved in the case, but I think that sounds like a great story. I believe that people should go forward.” This statement is typical and representative of the class, grace and style that the Nifongs have displayed throughout the horrific assault against them by the state of North Carolina and the biased mainstream media. Mike Nifong’s refusal to speak with meida is understandable when one takes into consideration the media assassination of him by media journalists and tv news producers. The launch of oppressive and spiteful attacks against Mr. Nifong was borne from Rae Evans’s (mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans) Carpetbagger Jihad call for action during a CBS “60 Minutes” television interview. Ms. Evans, in lashing out against the prosecutor who dared to bring charges against her son and two other Dukies, promised that Mr. Nifong would “pay, every day, for the rest of his life.”

Ms. Evans, who worked for more than a decade as an executive for CBS News (a fact which CBS has chosen not to disclose), is now founder and owner of a thriving Washington, D.C. consulting firm, and consequently she has the political and media connections to propel the unwarranted onslaught against a man who merely had the courage to do what was right. That man, Mike Nifong, did what he felt was the right thing to do when the alleged victim of a Duke lacrosse Spring Break beer-guzzling stripper party accused three Duke players of sexually assaulting her in March 2006. Mr. Nifong’s decision to move forward with the prosecution flew in the face of the wishes of Duke University, the North Carolina attorney general, and Governor Mike Easley. And, contrary to the rigged May 1, 2006 primary poll by SurveyUSA which was sponsored by WTVD ABC-11 News, Nifong’s pursuit of the Duke defendants severely compromised his chances of being elected to his incumbent position of Durham district attorney.

Make no mistake about it, the media is no friend of Mr. Nifong… it’s his worst nightmare. It has persistently played a Jedi mind-trick on the public with its false and misleading representations, such as the following: (1) stating that the Duke Lacrosse defendants were “exonerated”; (2) headlines falsely stating that Mr. Nifong “admitted that nothing happened”; and (3) fabricating statements, a specific example being an article by MSNBC Senior legal analyst Susan F. Filan which fictionalizes a conversation wherein Mr. Nifong asks his son to attend his disciplinary hearing.

The biased media was successful in its underhanded undertaking to destroy Mr. Nifong’s image and reputation nationwide, heaping scorn upon him and turning him into a virtual pariah. The majority of people who are aware of his unjust persecution are unwilling to show him any support for fear of being targeted themselves… the one exception being members of the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong. This grass roots organization of supporters, formed in June 2008,has been largely ignored by the media which aims to minimize any show of support for the former embattled district attorney. Because of the anti-Nifong propaganda spewed forth by the media, many sppon-fed media subscribers have developed a visceral hatred for this honorable, gentle, decent man of integrity… Mike Nifong. So it should not come as any surprise that Mr. Nifong now refuses to talk to the media.

What I find truly disturbing is that Newsday would have the audacity to phone Mr. Nifong in order to get his opinion about Duke Lacrosse defendant Collin Finnerty’s graduation from college. Was the Newsday attempt to interview Mr. Nifong done intentionally to provoke, embarrass, rub in, flaunt, inflict emotional distress, taunt, or all of the above? I do not know what the motivation was for Newsday calling Mr. Nifong, but I know that it was uncalled for, insensitive, malicious, and demonstrated that Newsday has no class.

If Newsday wants to conduct an interview on a topic related to the Duke Lacrosse case, I would be more than happy to oblige. Instead of talking about the graduation of one of the Duke Lacrosse defendants, I would suggest the subject of Crystal Mangum’s recent incarceration on trumped up charges and her excessive $1 million bail. Newsday doesn’t want to tackle the outrageousness of this fiasco, however. Trumped up charges against Ms. Mangum included: (1) felony attempted first degree murder; (2) assault and battery; and (3) felony identity theft. These charges were included at arrest for the purpose of helping to justify the ridiculously high bail of $1 million, but they were not sought on the grand jury indictment because prosecutors knew these charges were frivolous and totally lacking in merit. The charges upon which Crystal Mangum was indicted by the grand jury were just as phony: (1) felony first degree arson (initially five counts reduced to one count at indictment) in a case where Ms. Mangum obviously executed a controlled burn and there was no flame damage or intention to damage her apartment building by fire. This charge is bogus because first degree arson by definition requires the deliberate burning of an occupied building or structure; (2) three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile are dependent on the first degree arson charge being valid, which it isn’t… therefore these three counts are baseless, as well; (3) injury to personal property – there was no proof that the few clothes burned in the bathtub had a value of $200 or more, and the claims of vandalism to the car of the ex-boyfriend brings the credibility of the Durham police reports into question; and (4) obstructing the investigation of a public officer by claiming Ms. Mangum’s giving a false name to police officers is ludicrous because they knew Ms. Mangum’s true identity before asking her.

The overriding issue is that Ms. Mangum, like Mike Nifong, DNA lab director Brian Meehan, two chief investigators of the Durham Police Department, the Durham City Manager, Nifong supporters as myself, and others considered by the Powers-That-Be to be on the “wrong end” of the Duke Lacrosse case, have been victimized by the Carpetbagger Jihadist movement. Unfortunately the media has served as a pivotal cog in the ‘Bagger’s machinery of destructive retaliation against anything pro-Nifong. By so doing, the media serves the interests of the few, well-heeled privileged at the expense of the vast majority of common folk who seek from the media honest, unbiased, and objective reporting.

The article about Duke defendant Finnerty’s graduation may be accurate in its account, but the actions by its authors to secure an interview with Mike Nifong clearly shows that Newsday is no class act.

Doing the right thing when a prosecutor errs

Wayne County District Attorney Branny Vickory in his earlier days as a North Carolina prosecutor helped to wrongly convict Dwayne Dail of the 1987 rape of a twelve year old girl. Mr. Dail spent nearly 19 years in prison before DNA evidence performed on a night-gown proved that he could not possibly have been the rapist. The case that Prosecutor Vickory brought against Dail more than two decades ago lacked “credible evidence” (something for which former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong has been soundly criticized for in his handling of the Duke Lacrosse case). Despite Dail’s steadfast insistence of his innocence, he was convicted largely on the testimony of the twelve year old victim. The full extent of the evidence in the Duke Lacrosse case will never be known because it was dismissed by Attorney General Roy Cooper on April 11, 2007… however, like the rape case in 1989, it included testimony by the sexual assault victim. Prosecutor Branny Vickory, though green as an attorney back then, seems to have prosecuted the case in good faith and within the standards accepted by which prosecutors are held.

Mr. Vickory prosecuted the wrong person for the 1987 rape. Did he make some mistakes? I am sure that he would be the first to admit to it, just like Mr. Nifong admitted to making mistakes during the prosecution of the Duke Lacrosse case (although the jury will be out permanently regarding innocence or guilt of the three indicted by the grand jury). Although the injustice of an innocent man (Dail) spending nearly two decades of his young productive life unjustly confined is unfathomable, the prosecutor, Vickory, should not be pilloried. Mike Nifong,who prosecuted the Duke Lacrosse case in good faith and within acceptable standards, likewise should not be held to public scorn just because he prosecuted defendants from families of wealth, power, and privilege. Unfortunately, the gauntlet was thrown down and the Carpetbagger Jihad initiated when the mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans, Rae Evans gave her interview on “60 Minutes.” She stated that Mr. Nifong would “pay every day for the rest of his life,” because, as she so insightfully put it, he “picked on the wrong families to indict.” It is important to also keep in mind that the Duke Lacrosse defendants, as opposed to Mr. Dail, never spent one day in jail, that they received seven million dollars each from Duke University, and that they are currently suing the city of Durham seeking an additional ten mil each.

Although I am not well versed about the Dwayne Dail case and the prosecution’s actions, I am inclined to give the prosecutor the benefit of the doubt, if, as was reported in The News & Observer, Vickory rushed to free Dail once the 2007 DNA tests excluded him as the assailant of the 12 year old victim. No one person, or no one prosecutor is perfect… everyone makes mistakes. To his credit, Branny Vickory admitted his mistake and made an effort to correct it. This is what a good prosecutor does. And as simple as the principle of correcting a mistake seems, it is one that is not undertaken as often as one would think among state prosecutors. In the Alan Gell case (prosecuted by David Hoke), for example, as soon as definitive exculpatory evidence became available proving that Gell could not have committed the murder for which he received the death sentence, the Attorney General’s Office proceeded to re-try Gell, nonetheless.

More recently, another situation where prosecutorial mistakes led to a wrongful 17 year imprisonment of an innocent man is illustrated by the Greg Taylor case. When the Innocence Inquiry Commission unanimously referred Greg Taylor’s murder conviction to a three judge panel for review, the initial 1991 prosecutor Tom Ford, with assistance from Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby, fought tooth and nail to have the innocent man, Greg Taylor, remain incarcerated for the rest of his life. The judicial review of the case brought to light the fact that the State lab withheld information favorable to the defendant, and that Prosecutor Ford misrepresented the lab results in order to win a conviction against the innocent man. Like prosecutors Vickory and Hoke, Ford had no credible evidence to charge or prosecute Greg Taylor in 1993.

Prosecutors, once they realize that they have made a mistake, should admit it and move to correct it… like Vickory and Mike Nifong. When the Duke Lacrosse accuser could not identify to Prosecutor Nifong’s satisfaction that she had been rape, Mr. Nifong immediately moved to drop the rape charges. However, when exculpatory evidence was uncovered pointing to Gell’s innocence, the Attorney General’s Office chose to fight to try and convince the public that it had not made a mistake by convicting an innocent man to death… but the jury, when presented with the exculpatory evidence and given the opportunity to deliberate, quickly reached the obvious verdict, that Gell was innocent. Prosecutor Tom Ford, likewise tried to convince the world that Greg Taylor was guilty before a panel 17 years after the initial trial. Ford was more interested in trying to prove that he had not made a mistake in convicting the wrong man, rather than any consideration that he might be keeping an innocent man behind bars for the rest of his life… he didn’t care.

All prosecutors, at some time or another in their careers, make mistakes… but it is the relatively few good ones, like Branny Vickory and Mike Nifong, who admit to them and then set about to correct them.

Carpetbagger families of Duke LAXers and their direct link to the mainstream media

Rae Forker Evans, the founder and president of Evans Capitol Group, has an extraordinarily impressive resume. The Evans Capitol Group had its beginning in 1995, and is a public policy firm operating in Washington, D.C. It provides strategic guidance to corporations, non-profits, and trade associations seeking to influence the political process on a broad range of public policy issues. In 1982, Ms. Evans established the National Affairs office and represented Hallmark Cards, Inc. and its 25,000 employees on Capitol Hill, at the Executive Branch, and with national and international communities in Washington. She has received numerous honors and appointments throughout her career, including serving as president and Board Member of the Business-Government Relations Council, recipient of the 1996 National Women’s Economic Alliance Director’s Choice Award, and a 1992 appointment by President George W. Bush to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. Ms. Evans is married to a Washington D.C. attorney, David Evans, and they have two children, David and Kristen. Her son, Dave, was a student at Duke University, and was one of three Duke lacrosse players who were indicted by a grand jury on sexual assault charges stemming from the infamous stripper and beer guzzling party on Durham’s Buchanan Street in March 2006.

I would be remiss, if I were not to mention that Ms. Evan’s stellar professional career also included a decade-long stint at CBS News. From 1971 to 1981, she held positions at CBS News, the megacorporation that produces “60 Minutes” on CBS – TV. Later she worked as Director of Government Relations for CBS, Inc. The strong and intimate relationship that Ms. Evans enjoyed with CBS News is information that neither CBS, Inc. nor the mainstream media has wanted to share with the public after the Duke Lacrosse case was brought to the fore by the media. CBS’s “60 Minutes” devoted several television programs to the Duke Lacrosse case, and featured interviews with Ms. Evans, and the parents of the two other Duke Lacrosse defendants. Never once, did CBS, Inc. disclose that Ms. Evans, mother of one of the Duke Lacrosse defendants, had worked for more than a decade with CBS, News. Likewise the biased mainstream media never bothered to bring up this relationship between Evans and CBS.

CBS, like other mainstream media – ABC, Fox News, and NBC – has been markedly prejudicial in its coverage of former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and the Duke Lacrosse case. For example, like the rest of the mainstream media, it embraces the concept that Attorney General Roy Cooper’s April 11, 2007 “Innocent Promulgation” carries legal weight and is a matter of fact. It consistently and constantly refers to the Duke Lacrosse players as being “innocent,” “falsely accused,” “cleared,” and “exonerated,” based on the attorney general’s statement. It is my belief that the news media knows that they are misrepresenting the Duke Lacrosse defendants when it refers to them as “exonerated” or “innocent,” but they believe and rely on the belief that the majority of the public will not be aware that these descriptions are misleading, and that those who do, won’t care.

All the same, I wrote to executives at major media outlets to inform them that their use of the “innocent”-like adjectives with relationship to the Duke Lacrosse defendants was incorrect and misleading. To give credence to my position, I told them that Campbell University law school professor Anthony V. Baker agreed that Attorney General Cooper’s proclamation of innocent had no legal substance or standing. Professor Baker stated, “The A.G. presents a case but does not sit as "trier of fact" -- or ultimate adjudicator -- of it. That is the sole province of the jury, or a judge sitting in lieu of a jury.” To date, the media, in general, has chosen to ignore my complaint with this aspect of the Duke Lacrosse coverage.

CBS News is also guilty of another instance of attempting to mislead the public. It arises out of the Carpetbagger Families’ obsessive and intense desire to erase from the minds of people that an attack or criminal action against the exotic dancers could have possibly taken place the night of March 13, 2006. Through attorney Joseph Cheshire’s underling, Brad Bannon, the Attorney General in his April 11, 2007 statement capitulated to Carpetbagger demands by stating that “no attack occurred.” The Carpetbaggers tried to extract a similar statement from Prosecutor Mike Nifong, using the threat of significant jail time (on trumped up contempt charges), however, despite the duress Mr. Nifong constantly maintained that he believed that something (criminal) happened. To get around Mr. Nifong’s persistent stand on this issue, CBS News put words into Mr. Nifong’s mouth with its blaring headline, “Ex-DA admits no crime in Duke case.” The headline is a blatant outright falsehood that is not substantiated within the text of the article.

As with “60 Minutes,” the online CBS News article with the false headline does not disclose the close relationship between the mother of defendant Dave Evans and CBS News. If the public were aware of the close relationship, then questions of bias and fairness would be entertained by those with open and objective minds… and that is something neither the Carpetbaggers nor the media wants. And let there be no doubt about it, that Rae Evans, with all of her relationships with CBS and other media, as well as the contacts she has made throughout the upper echelons of government in the nation’s capital, and her husband who is an attorney in a prestigious Washington law firm, carries humongous clout. And if you have any doubt that she would use this clout, let me refer to her vindictive “60 Minutes” interview in which she promises that “he (Mr. Nifong) is going pay every day for the rest of his life.”

Ms. Evans had the clout with the media, and with her attorneys and others, she did a magnificent job in orchestrating a media propaganda campaign that was so successful in defining Mr. Nifong and the Duke Lacrosse case to her liking, that former Bush architect Karl Rove would be green with envy. There’s no doubt about it… the mainstream media is not only in cahoots with Carpetbagger Jihad Movement against Mike Nifong etal., but is at the fore, actively blazing the way amongst the weak-minded populous. The link is undeniable.

There is no doubt that Ms. Evans is a brilliant and highly motivated individual, and a person of whose achievements I am in awe. However, it was her famous and insightful statement in the “60 Minutes” interview with Lesley Stahl: “Mr. Nifong, you picked on the wrong families,” that so succinctly and accurately defined the crux of the problem with the state’s criminal justice system. As I am sure that Ms. Evans would agree, the North Carolina system of justice is one that is based on a tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.” For this profoundly truthful admission by Ms. Evans, we, Tar Heelians who ascribe to the principle of “equal justice for all,” are extremely grateful.

Don’t believe the media hype… Crystal Mangum is Still in jail

The last sentence in the “Newsweek” article titled Crystal Mangum’s Return to Court: A sad final chapter to the Duke lacrosse scandal,” reads as follows: “She's under house arrest on a $250,000 bond.” This article by “Newsweek” writer and Duke University alum Susannah Meadows was posted online on February 23, 2010. However, a reliable source e-mailed me on March 22, 2010 (nearly one month after the “Newsweek” posting) to say that Crystal Mangum was still languishing behind bars in jail. In other words, she was not under house arrest as stated in the “Newsweek” article.

Unlike the unregulated and self-serving North Carolina State Bar’s disciplinary lead jurist F. Lane Williamson, who possesses the divine power of reading former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong’s and other attorneys’ minds and miraculously determining their intent, I am not blessed with such powers. Therefore, I am unable to determine whether the author of the article, Ms. Meadows, purposefully intended to mislead readers or whether this error was nothing more than another example of her blatantly sloppy journalism.

Normally I would attribute the mistake to the former, however, it is possible that she may have relied on confusing articles by other media sources, specifically NBC 17 News or the News & Observer, as a basis for her claim that Ms. Mangum was under house arrest. Both of these media sources, I believe, intentionally wrote questionable but convoluted and confusing accounts of Ms. Mangum’s incarceration status in order to falsely imply that she was under house arrest rather than being held within the confines of a small jail cell.

Possible misleading sources which Ms. Meadows may have referred to could possibly have included reports by NBC 17 News and/or the News & Observer. NBC 17 News posted online on February 22, 2010 the following article titled “Mangum To Remain On House Arrest, Bond Reduced To $250,000,” and opened with the following paragraph: “Crystal Mangum, the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case, will remain under electronic house arrest until her next court appearance on April 5 based on last week's charges of arson, assault and child endangerment.” The News & Observer article of February 22, 2010 titled “Duke lacrosse accuser Mangum’s bond reduced” contained this confusing and misleading passage: “As a condition of the bond, Mangum must not have any contact with her boyfriend and remain under electronic house arrest until the case is resolved or the court changes the condition of the bond.”

Why, you ask, would the media prefer to mislead the masses into believing that Ms. Mangum’s custody arrangement was to be restricted to the premises of her home with her only discomfort coming from an electronic monitor strapped to her ankle rather than the stark reality of the cold, small jail cell in which she was actually confined? The answer is simple… to give the appearance that the courts and judicial system in North Craolina possess a modicum of compassion and fair play. However, under the selective circumstances of her arrest and its aftermath, such an illusion is impossible for the objective and logical mind to accept, much less comprehend.

Any reasonable person knows the excessively selective, punitive, and draconian treatment of Crystal Mangum by the Durham police, prosecutors, and courts stems from the fact that she was the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case. The backlash against Ms. Mangum is the proximate result of the malicious Carpetbagger Jihad against Mike Nifong etal. invoked by Rae Evans, mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans. And even though Durham’s Duke University has given $21 million to the carpetbagger families in an out-of-court settlement, and the City of Durham has spent millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees in defending against the $30 million lawsuit filed by the avaricious carpetbaggers, the cash-strapped city mindlessly continues to target Mike Nifong, Crystal Mangum, and their supporters, as well as any other detractors of the Duke Lacrosse defendants.

The abhorrent treatment given to Ms. Mangum by the state of North Carolina only solidifies the assertion that the North Carolina criminal justice system is truly one of “selective justice based on Class and Color.” Some of the charges filed by Durham Police and prosecutors against Ms. Mangum (especially attempted first degree murder and communicating threats) are rarely, if ever, made in domestic violence cases. Likewise, the charge of identity theft against Ms. Mangum is inappropriate and rarely made against individuals who refuse to give their birth/legal names or use an alias when questioned by police investigating a crime which does not involve the use of another’s name for criminal or fraudulent means.

For a $1 million bond to be imposed in a domestic violence case is unheard of, especially when a weapon is not involved and there are no physical injuries sustained by either party. For a judge to set a bail for Ms. Mangum that is unreachable and unreasonable is a travesty of justice, especially when bonds of such magnitude are not routinely issued in other instances of domestic violence cases where physical abuse is far more grievous than in this case.

Because the biased main-street media is vested in carrying on the vindictive mandate set forth by the Carpetbagger Jihad, I am not surprised by the absence of editorial media outrage at the selective and unfair treatment of Ms. Mangum. Nor am I surprised by the silence emanating from the leadership representing African American communities in Durham and throughout North Carolina. Dr. Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, is quick to attack as racist the statement of a Wake School Board chairman who referred to proponents of the school system’s standing diversity policy as “animals released from cages”… But when an African American woman falls victim to the blatantly excessive and draconian actions of the state’s criminal justice system, he doesn’t say a word. The same can be said for civil rights attorney Al McSurely. Surely, they do not believe her treatment in this “domestic violence” case is justified.

Leaders of the black communities of Durham and North Carolina should have supported Mike Nifong when he was being prosecuted and persecuted by the state because of his handling of the Duke Lacrosse case… but they abandoned him. So, it comes, therefore, as no surprise that Barber, McSurely, and other so-called leaders of the black people in North Carolina would turn their backs to the suffering and unjust plight of Ms. Mangum.

When it comes to a confrontation with the Carpetbagger Jihad Juggernaut, few people or organizations, with the exception of the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong, have the stomach to man up against its injustice. So, as leaders of the black communities of Durham and North Carolina intentionally stay away from the fray with regards to this issue of injustice, Crystal Mangum remains incarcerated within a tiny cell and continues to suffer injustice. She does not, as the biased mainstream media would like the public to believe, enjoy the small comfort of confinement under house arrest.