Crystal Mangum confessed publicly for the first time that she falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of raping her in 2006.
In an interview posted Wednesday from a North Carolina prison where she is serving time for an unrelated second-degree murder conviction, Mangum admitted to lying about players sexually assaulting her at a team party where she was working as a stripper. She continued to push the allegations in a 2008 book after the case was thrown out in 2007.
“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 told Katerena DePasquale of “Let’s Talk with Kat.”
Mangum said she “made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.”
“I hope that they can forgive me,” she said of the three men.
Mangum revealed her intent to come clean after an interview request from DePasquale, the Duke Chronicle reported.
“It’s been on my heart to do a public apology concerning the Duke lacrosse case,” Mangum wrote to her in a letter viewed by the Chronicle. “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.”
She repeatedly referred to the men as her “brothers” in the interview and said she “loved them.”
Her original accusations ignited the nation’s attention in part because of the racial dynamic. Mangum is Black while the falsely named assailants are white and were attending an elite university.
As the case unraveled, the charges were dismissed in April 2007. Mangum was not charged with perjury and can no longer be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations, the New York Post noted.
The players sued the university for its response to the accusations and reached a settlement for reportedly $20 million apiece.
Reported sexual assault claims are found to be false between 2% and 10% of the time, according to a report by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, while more than 60% of sexual assault cases are never reported to authorities.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.