Content Warning: This article contains mentions of sexual assault and rape.

Crystal Mangum, the woman who falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape in 2006, admitted to lying about the allegations and asked for forgiveness from David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann.

Mangum made her confession in an interview posted Wednesday at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women on “Let’s Talk with Kat,” hosted by Katerena DePasquale. Mangum has nothing to do with the lacrosse case and is currently in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in the 2013 death of her then-boyfriend.

“I testified falsely against them by saying that they had raped me when they hadn’t, and that was false, and I betrayed the trust of many other people who believed in me,” Mangum said in the interview. “(I) made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people, not God.”

Then-North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper did not prosecute Mangum for perjury after the case was dismissed, saying at the time that investigators thought “she may have actually believed the many different stories she told.” The statute of limitations for perjury charges under North Carolina law is typically two years, meaning Mangum can no longer be prosecuted for lying under oath.

Duke Athletics declined The Chronicle’s request for comment on Mangum’s statement. University leadership, former university president Richard Brodhead, then-head men’s lacrosse coach Mike Pressler and Seligmann did not respond to The Chronicle’s request for comment in time for publication.

Mangum’s statement comes nearly two decades after she claimed she was raped by the lacrosse players. Until now, she had never publicly stated that this was not true.

In her 2008 book “Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story,” Mangum wrote, “I will never say that nothing at all happened that night,” and then provided graphic details of the alleged incident. However, over the past 18 years she has told conflicting accounts of the night.

Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann sued Brodhead and the university after their case was dismissed in April 2007 and an undisclosed settlement was reached. They alleged Brodhead repeatedly made false statements and conspired to deprive them of their right to a fair trial.

In a September 2007 statement, Brodhead described his reaction as leaving “families feeling abandoned when they needed support most.”

In the interview with DePasquale, Mangum repeatedly mentioned her relationship with God in prison and invoked her faith in her call for forgiveness.

“I hope that (the players) can heal and trust God and know that God loves them and that God loves them through me and lets them know that they are valuable,” she said.

Mangum referred to the three accused lacrosse players as her “brothers” and said they “didn’t deserve the accusations.”

A look back at the case

The case brought against Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann related to the events of March 13, 2006. Mangum alleged that the three players had met her at a team house party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. raped, where they paid for two strippers – including Mangum. present.

The allegations sparked a widespread media response across the country, which lingered on and around Duke’s campus for months.

Amid national outrage, the university canceled the team’s game against Georgetown on March 25.

“We did this given the situation we find ourselves in now,” Brodhead said in a press conference after the game was canceled. “There are such serious questions in the air that it would be inappropriate for us to continue playing.”

Tensions heightened when, on the night of the party, an email from then-lacrosse player Ryan McFadyen about cutting off the skin of strippers was circulated. McFadyen later clarified that this statement was in reference to the film “American Psycho.” On the day the contents of the email were made public, Pressler – who had been receiving death threats at the time – was asked by Brodhead to resign from his position as head coach. Pressler later successfully sued the university to overturn the resignation. Brodhead later requested that the remainder of the season be canceled.

“We never found out who leaked McFadyen’s email (to the press),” Chris Kennedy, associate athletics director and then-assistant athletics director, said in a Sept. 13 interview with The Chronicle. “… Someone got hold of this team-only email chain, leaked it and basically took what (McFadyen) said out of context.”

Before and during the trial – the same period in which he was running for re-election – Mike Nifong, then the Durham County district attorney and lead prosecutor in the case, spoke openly to the press, saying in a March 2006 interview with CBS News: ” There is no doubt that a sexual assault occurred.

Initially, Nifong said DNA would prove which players were innocent. However, when all tests came back negative, Nifong revised his statement, noting that courts previously had to “handle sexual assault cases the good old way, where witnesses would come to the stand and tell what happened to them.” , without DNA evidence.

Nifong was disbarred from the North Carolina State Bar on June 16, 2007 for lying in court and withholding DNA evidence, ultimately exonerating the defendants from responsibility for Mangum’s allegations. In their lawsuit against Brodhead and Duke, Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann also condemned the “tragic haste to press charges” by Nifong and his co-conspirators and their “failure to verify serious allegations.”

Although the charges against the players were dismissed in April 2007, the lives of those involved changed forever. Evans graduated in 2006, while Seligmann transferred to Brown University and Finnerty to Loyola University Maryland. Many journalists who covered the case — including former Chronicle editor Seyward Darby — appeared on the 2016 ESPN documentary “Fantastic Lies” to talk about the fallout from the case.

In October 2008, Mangum addressed the public for the first time since the case.

“My only intentions were justice, and I wanted justice for myself,” she said. In the speech, she did not admit that she had made up the allegations and continued to support the story told in “Last Dance for Grace.”

Sixteen years later, Mangum has a different story to tell.

“I have no regrets,” she told DePasquale. “Everything happens to bring everyone to the point where they are, and everything serves to show God’s love and His forgiveness, His grace and His mercy.”

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