Woman at Center of 2006 Duke Lacrosse Rape Case Admits Entire Story Was a Fabrication

Crystal Mangum, who falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of raping her in 2006, confessed that she lied and asked for the men’s forgiveness.

Mangum made the admission to podcast host Katerena DePasquale in an interview published on Thursday.

DePasquale conducted the sit-down at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women where Mangum is serving a sentence for a 2013 second-degree murder conviction of her then-boyfriend, Duke University’s student news outlet The Chronicle reported.

“I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me,” Mangum said on the “Let’s Talk with Kat” podcast.

“[I] made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God,” she added.

More than 18 years after the Duke lacrosse allegations, Crystal Mangum admits that she made it all up.
“I testified falsely against [the lacrosse players] by saying that they raped me when they didn’t…I made up a story that wasn’t true…I hope that they can forgive me.” pic.twitter.com/3yMjbQTQXH

— KC Johnson (@kcjohnson9) December 12, 2024

Then-Democratic North Carolina Attorney General and current Gov. Roy Cooper did not prosecute Mangum for perjury after the case was dismissed due to questions about her mental health.

“She may have actually believed the many different stories that she has been telling,” he said at the time, according to Fox News.

The statute of limitations is around two years.

Mangum had alleged that Duke men’s lacrosse players David Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann raped her at a team party where she and another woman were performing as strippers.

The players denied the allegation, and the story made national headlines, with the lead prosecutor in the case, then-Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, telling an NBC News affiliate that he believed the sexual assault had taken place and that it was racially motivated.

“The information that I have does lead me to conclude that a rape did occur,” Nifong said during the interview, per court documents. “The circumstances of the rape indicated a deep racial motivation for some of the things that were done. It makes a crime that is by its nature one of the most offensive and invasive even more so.”

“This is not a case of people drinking, and it getting out of hand from that. This is something much, much beyond that,” he added.

Nifong was later disbarred in June 2007 by the North Carolina State Bar “for lying in court and withholding DNA evidence which ultimately absolved the defendants of responsibility for Mangum’s allegations,” according to The Chronicle.

Though the charges against Evans, Finnerty, and Seligmann were dismissed in April 2007, their lives were altered, with the latter two transferring to other colleges to complete their education.

In October 2008, Mangum addressed the public for the first time since the charges had been dropped saying, “No one deserves to be sexually assaulted, regardless of their profession or regardless of what they have done.”

“I’m not just someone who tried to frame someone who was innocent of sexual assault. My only intentions were for justice, and I wanted justice for myself.” So she stuck to her story.

DePasquale told The Chronicle that Mangum had recently reached out to her from prison seeking an interview.

“It’s been on my heart to do a public apology concerning the Duke lacrosse case,” Mangum wrote in a letter to the podcast host. “I actually lied about the incident to the public, my family, my friends, and to God about it, and I’m not proud about it.”

DePasquale recounted to The Chronicle, “It felt like this apology was something she needed to get off her chest.”

Evans, Finnerty, and Seligmann sued former Duke University President Richard Brodhead and the school itself after their case was dismissed, alleging the school leader “repeatedly made false statements and conspired to deprive them of their right to a fair trial,” The Chronicle said.

The case was resolved with an undisclosed settlement amount for the three.

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