Duke lacrosse team rape accuser named

Yesterday Roy Cooper, the attorney general of North Carolina, said of the Duke lacrosse team players accused of rape:

We believe these cases were a result of a tragic rush to accuse and failure to verify serious allegations. Based on these significant inconsistencies of evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges.

Their accuser, whose anonymity was so fastidiously protected while these young men’s lives were baselessly destroyed, was Crystal Gail Mangum. This is a photograph of her taken by the Durham Police Department.

That it took more than a year for authorities to finally determine that Ms. Mangum was, uh, not credible (I’ll be charitable and stay away from the L-word) is obscene and without reasonable excuse. The accused are screaming long and loud for reform in the wake of their respective experiences, and they deserve it.

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