Duke Lacrosse accuser Crystal Mangum is admitting that she lied about sexual assault allegations in 2006, nearly 20 years later.
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Mangum accused three lacrosse players of sexually assaulting her in 2006. She turned the lives of three young men — David Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann — into living nightmares. Now, she's asking for forgiveness.
Currently, Mangum is serving a sentence at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women for second-degree murder after killing her former boyfriend in 2013. In an interview with "Let's Talk with Kat," Mangum made the bombshell confession.
"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 in the interview. "[I] made up a story that wasn't true because I wanted validation from people and not from God."
At the time, Attorney General Roy Cooper chose not prosecute Mangum for perjury. Ultimately, her case against the Duke Lacrose players got dismissed due to her changing stories and lack of evidence. At the time, investigators thought "she may have actually believed the many different stories that she has been telling."
Crystal Mangum Apologizes
It's the first time that Mangum publicly admitted that nothing happened. Prior to this, Mangum refused to admit that she made up the sexual assault allegations. In her 2008 book Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story, Mangum wrote, "I will never say that nothing at all happened that night."
She then went into graphic details of sexual assault.
"It's been on my heart to do a public apology concerning the Duke lacrosse case," Mangum wrote to the show. "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."
"When we met and were about to begin the interview, she made it clear that all she wanted to do is to apologize," Katerena DePasquale wrote to The Chronicle. "It felt like this apology was something she needed to get off her chest."
Following Mangum's allegations, all three members of the Duke Lacrosse team were publicly persecuted by the community and school. Ultimately, the three sued and settled out of court.
"I hope that [the players] can heal and trust God. And know that God loves them and that God is loving them through me, letting them know that they're valuable," she said. She said that they didn't deserve it.
