After a woman admitted in 2006 to making up rape allegations against three Duke University lacrosse players, the author of a best-selling book on the case recounted an interview with one of the falsely accused men, who feared he would receive a scarlet letter from the incident will carry him for the rest of his life.

In conversation with PEOPLE, Don Yaeger, co-author of the 2008 bestseller It’s Not About the Truth: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives It Destroyedmentioned an interview he conducted with one of the accused students, Dave Evans, who feared that he would be remembered for the unfounded allegations against Crystal Mangum not only after his acquittal, but until his death and even afterward.

“In the last chapter of my book, I had an interview with one of the three young men,” Yaeger recalls, pointing out that the charges had already been dropped at that point.

“The young man looked at me and said, ‘You know, Don, it doesn’t matter what I accomplish in my life, it doesn’t matter where I go in my career. When I die, there will be Dave Evans: “one of the three players accused of raping an adult dancer while playing lacrosse at Duke,” Yaeger remembers Evans saying. “That’s the punishment.”

In a podcast appearance recorded in November, Mangum admitted that she made up the rape allegations she made in 2006 against three members of the Duke Blue Devils lacrosse team: Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann.

“I falsely testified against them by saying that they had raped me when they hadn’t,” Mangum told Katerenena DePasquale Let’s talk to Kat Podcast. “And that was wrong and I betrayed the trust of many other people who believed in me.”

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Mangum, 46, accused the trio of raping her in March 2006 at a party where she had been hired to perform a striptease.

Despite concerns about their credibility as accusers, local district attorney Mike Nifong filed rape charges against the three. The charges were later dismissed and Nifong was disbarred.

Mangum was later convicted and imprisoned for the murder of her boyfriend, Reginald Daye. She is eligible for release from prison in 2026.

Yaeger questioned why Mangum didn’t come forward sooner or apologize directly to the three former lacrosse players, long after their allegations had been debunked.

“I’m all for people seeking redemption in their lives,” Yaeger said. “But the challenge for me is that when she’s been sitting there for 12 years and coming to the conclusion that she needs to apologize and acknowledge the harm she’s caused to so many, it’s kind of strange that she’s never done that inflicted on other people.” Sit down and write a note to someone.