Déjà Vu All Over Again

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the Hoax that today’s supplemental motion to suppress the photo identifications of the Hoax defendants reveals that pseudo-victim, Crystal Gail Mangum, has yet again drastically changed her story. It should also surprise no one that the latest re-re-re-invention of the Hoax appears tailored to weave itself around Reade Seligmann's alibi, while “explaining” away the exonerating DNA evidence, the inconsistencies in the photo identification transcript, the time-stamped photographs, contradictions in each of the accuser's prior statements, and more. While the latest rewriting of the evolving Hoax script should not surprise anyone, the enormity of the changes is very frightening.

With an investigative report reminiscent of Sgt. Mark Gottlieb’s miraculously conceived from “memory” notes that were employed mid-summer to resuscitate a crumbling Hoax by filling the many holes that were then apparent, Defendant Nifong’s chief investigator, Linwood Wilson, appears to have taken a magic eraser with him when he interviewed the Hoax-tress on December 21. The newly revised version of the Hoax seems to be an entirely new fabrication that contradicts nearly every prior statement of the accuser to date. What is most horrifying about this new development is that it is upon this fractured, Victoria Peterson-esque foundation that Defendant Nifong based his decision to drop the rape charges, yet proceed with the lesser, though still serious, charges against the three innocent victims he continues to persecute.

In order for you to believe the newest version of the Hoax, you must disbelieve not only each of the accuser’s prior statements, including her pivotal identifications, but also nearly every other witness account made to date, and almost all other evidence that has been publicized so far.

To believe that the accuser arrived at the Buchanan house at 11:10 p.m., as Linwood Wilson now claims that she states, you must disbelieve the accuser’s cell phone records (“She received short calls at 11:11 p.m. and 11:22 p.m., and then called her father at 11:25, a call that lasted 7 minutes. She received two more calls, at 11:33 and 11:36. This last call lasted three minutes”) and the statements of the accuser’s father (“He said she did call him to say she safely reached her destination -- about 11:30 p.m., about the start of a late-night talk show he was watching.”), her driver, Brian Taylor, ("On our way there, she got two calls on her cell phone saying if you don't come soon, it's going to get canceled,"), her co-dancer, Kim Roberts, (“At about 11:30 Precious arrived and came to the back where we met for the first time.”), and the statement of neighbor, Jason Bissey, (“At approximately 11:50 p.m., I saw from my porch that a car had been stopped directly in front of 610”).

To believe now that immediately after dancing, the accuser directly left the house with Kim Roberts without first entering the bathroom, you must disbelieve Roberts' consistent and repeated assertions that, after dancing, they both adjourned to the bathroom, where she left the accuser while heading to her car alone. You must also disbelieve the lacrosse team’s statement that the dancers both went into the bathroom after dancing.

To believe that the accuser was assaulted from a few minutes after 11:35 until midnight, you must disbelieve everything that points to her arrival after 11:35. That means accepting that the assault began while she was on her phone, and while Reade Seligmann was on his phone. You must also believe that either the time-stamped photographs showing her dancing after midnight were altered, or that she danced both before and after the “assault.” Finally, you must accept that after being brutally "assaulted," she stayed at the house for nearly another hour.

In order to believe that twenty people witnessed and assisted Reade, David, and Collin restrain and forcibly remove the accuser from the bedroom to the bathroom, you must disbelieve the accuser’s prior written statement that three people restrained Ms. Roberts, while three men named Adam, Matt and Brett (who now are only one or two people total) forced her into the bathroom. You must also believe that those twenty witnesses have all remained silent all these months.

In order to believe now that Reade Seligmann’s participation was limited to holding her leg while they transported her into the bathroom and then simply watching the assault, you must disbelieve the pseudo-victim's 100% identification - the identification that is the only reason for his indictment - of Mr. Seligmann as the person who made her perform oral sex on him.

In order to believe that magic towels were used to wipe away all of the accused men’s DNA from her mouth, face, vagina, and anus, while simultaneously leaving behind the DNA of multiple unknown men, and not picking up a single cell of hers, you must believe that DNA testing is a junk science. In order to believe that the same magic towel was used to wipe the bathroom floor of a house rented by three college men, and occupied for the evening by twenty-some other partying men, without picking up a trace of anyone’s DNA and while still remaining as white as it was when police found it two days later, you must believe the lacrosse captains have Adrian Monk and Martha Stewart as maids. If so, you must also believe they should fire them, because they somehow missed an unindicted player’s semen on the floor.

In order to believe now that Ms. Roberts told the players to take their hands off of the pseudo-victim, you must not believe Ms. Roberts' statements to the effect of not having seen anyone lay hands on or assault the accuser. In order to believe that after the “attack” the guys carried her outside and dropped her on the ground, you must not give credence to the pseudo-victim's previous statement that following the “assault,” Ms. Roberts and Reade dressed her and carried her out to the car. In order to believe that after she was photographed lying down, she was then photographed at the door to the house, you must believe that not only were the time stamps of the photographs altered, but also that their sequence had been impossibly rearranged.

If you believe that the photograph of the pseudo-victim standing at the back door on the Abrams Report shows her upon arrival, you must believe that she arrived wearing one high-heeled shoe. If you believe that Dan, Adam, Brett, and Matt (as “Investigator” Wilson’s handwritten notes seem to indicate) were all David Evans, then you must disbelieve the accuser's April 6 statement to police, which indicated that the four were separate individuals. You must also disbelieve the veracity of the statements and descriptions she gave to Himan and Gottlieb on March 16, as well as her words from the April 4 “lineup”.

If you believe that Reade is also Adam and Matt, then you cannot believe her previous assertions that described in minute detail what Adam and Matt allegedly did to her. Unless, of course, you disbelieve the assertions Linwood Wilson attributes to her of Reade not having participated in the “sexual assault.” If you believe that, viewing David Evans with a five o’clock shadow, she stated twice that her attacker had a mustache, though she really meant to say a five o’clock shadow, then you need to be concerned about the voices in your head that you are likely hearing.

If you can believe all of the above revisions newly revealed today, while disbelieving all of the accuser's and other witnesses' prior statements and all of the other evidence that has been revealed, then you must believe that Defendant Nifong’s chief investigator, Linwood Wilson, did not “interview” the accuser with the intention of crafting a re-re-re-invention of the Hoax to save his boss's ass by conveniently, if clumsily, weaving its way around a mountain of evidence of actual innocence. It should also not frighten you that this blatant attempt by Defendant Nifong, his "victim," and his henchman Wilson to frame innocent men continues without intervention from the Department of Justice or local authorities. I assure you that I, for one, am frightened that this blatant abuse of power is allowed to continue.