State takes over Duke case

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The state attorney general's office agreed yesterday to take over the sexual assault case against three Duke University lacrosse players at the request of the embattled district attorney.

Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, hamstrung by a witness who has changed her account and dogged by allegations that he made inflammatory statements to the media, asked Attorney General Roy Cooper's office Friday to appoint a special prosecutor.

"I wish I could tell you this case would be resolved quickly," Cooper said at a news conference yesterday. "Since we have not been involved in the investigation and prosecution, all of the information will be new to our office. Any case with such serious criminal charges will require careful review."

Cooper pledged that his office would not comment on details of the case as officials review the investigation and the charges of sexual assault and kidnapping against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans.

Nifong's comments in the early days of the case led the State Bar to charge him last month with several ethics violations. Nifong's attorney said Friday that the conflict of interest those charges created led the veteran prosecutor to ask the state to take over.

Cooper said Jim Coman, a former director of the State Bureau of Investigation and head of the attorney general's Special Prosecution Section, and Mary D. Winstead, a prosecutor in that division, would oversee the case.

Defense attorneys in the case welcomed Nifong's decision.

"We've tried to cooperate with Mr. Nifong, and he's refused," said Joseph Cheshire, an attorney for Evans. "We look forward to working with whoever the new prosecutor is and we're confident that after that review is made, the case will be dismissed."

Nifong led the investigation into allegations by a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University who was hired to perform as a stripper. She said she was gang-raped and beaten at a March 13 party thrown by the Duke lacrosse team.

Nifong's interviews with news agencies in the early days of the case generated much scrutiny. At one point, he called the lacrosse team "a bunch of hooligans."