DA in Duke Case Says He Will Resign

Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, right, speaks with an unidentified member of the audience during a break in his North Carolina State Bar trial in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, June 14, 2007. The North Carolina State Bar has charged Nifong with breaking several rules of professional conduct when investigating the Duke lacrosse rape case, including keeping those DNA results from the defense. If convicted by a disciplinary committee, Nifong could be stripped of his license to practice law in the state. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, Pool) (Gerry Broome - AP)

The three players who were charged are white.

He also testified about the DNA tests, saying that when he turned over the report to the defense, he "believed at the time that I had given them everything." He said he didn't realize until months later that additional DNA information was missing.

"My first reaction was a variation of 'Oh crap. I didn't give them this?'" Nifong said.

The DNA tests found genetic material from several males in the accuser's underwear and body, but none from any lacrosse player. Aware of those results, Nifong pressed ahead with the case and won indictments against Seligmann, Evans and Finnerty.

"We went from being viewed as athletes to being viewed as rapists," Seligmann testified earlier Friday.

State prosecutors would later conclude the three players innocent victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse."

Even after saying he would resign, Nifong was incapable of agreeing that no crime was committed. Asked late Friday if he still believed the accuser was attacked, Nifong paused for several seconds before answering while he could not say it was a sexual assault, "something happened to make everybody leave that scene very quickly."

Seligmann testified that he and his teammates had been confident that the DNA testing would quickly clear them.

Seligmann broke into tears as he described how his attorney got a call from Nifong notifying him of the indictment last year. He said the attorney glanced his way and said, "She picked you."

"My dad just fell to the floor, and I just sat on the ground," Seligmann said. "And I said, 'My life is over.' ... The first thing I thought about was, 'How am I going to tell my mom?'"

His attorneys pulled together ATM receipts, cell phone records, time-stamped photos and the testimony of the cab driver who took Seligmann home the night of the off-campus party where the woman, hired to perform as a stripper, said she had been attacked.

"I don't know much about the law," Seligmann said, "but you hear the word alibi, and you think that's one of the first things a prosecutor would want to have. You don't charge an innocent person. I could never understand it."

The three-member panel hearing the case is expected to deliver a verdict not long after the trial concludes, perhaps as early as Saturday.

Nifong has declined several requests for interviews in recent months. His last public comment on the case before the ethics trial was a one-page statement released the day the case collapsed. In it, he apologized, but only "to the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved to be incorrect."

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, who in April said the three athletes were "innocent" victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse," declined to comment. Gov. Mike Easley, who appointed Nifong to the job and will be called on to pick his replacement, also had no comment, a spokeswoman said.

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Associated Press writers Steve Hartsoe and Samuel Spies in Raleigh and Joedy McCreary in Durham contributed to this report.