Disgraced Duke Ex-Prosecutor Nifong Files for Bankruptcy

http://www.newsmax.com/us/duke_lacrosse/2008/01/15/64636.html

Duke Prosecutor Files for Bankruptcy

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The disgraced former prosecutor who led the debunked Duke

lacrosse rape case filed for bankruptcy Tuesday, citing more than $180

million in liabilities _ the majority from the threat of two pending

lawsuits.

Mike Nifong reported $243,898 in assets of real and personal property to

U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The filing came the same day he and other defendants

were required to respond to a sweeping federal lawsuit filed in October by

the three exonerated players whom Nifong had falsely accused of rape.

In the lawsuit, attorneys for Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave

Evans accuse Nifong, the city of Durham, police investigators and others of

conducting "one of the most chilling episodes of premeditated police,

prosecutorial and scientific misconduct in modern American history."

Nifong accused the players of raping a woman hired to perform as a stripper

at a lacrosse team party in March 2006, but the case unraveled in the face

of the accuser's constantly changing story and a lack of evidence.

The players were cleared after more than a year by state prosecutors who

took special care to call them innocent of the allegations.

No DNA from any Duke lacrosse player was found on the accuser, and

exculpatory evidence that genetic material from other unidentified males was

found on the woman was withheld from the defense for several months.

Nifong, the former Durham County district attorney, was disbarred for more

than two dozen violations of the North Carolina State Bar's rules of

professional conduct in the case. He later spent a night in jail for lying

to a judge.

In his bankruptcy filing, Nifong lists liabilities of $30 million for each

of the cleared players as potential damages in that lawsuit. In addition, it

lists a potential of $30 million each for three unindicted players who

accused Nifong and dozens of others of inflicting emotional distress in a

lawsuit last month.

It also lists roughly $300,000 in other debts, including $8,897.71 owed to

the North Carolina State Bar for costs tied to his June disbarment trial.

Prosecutors generally have immunity for what they do inside a courtroom,

though legal experts have said some of Nifong's actions _ from calling the

lacrosse players a bunch of "hooligans" to putting himself in charge of the

investigation _ might leave him vulnerable to a civil case.

Nifong's chief investigator and the president of the DNA laboratory that

conducted key testing in the case both filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit

Tuesday.

Investigator Linwood Wilson said he was protected by prosecutorial immunity

since he was acting under Nifong's direction. The lab, DNA Security Inc.,

contends that it was Nifong's responsibility to ensure defense attorneys

received test results.

A response to the lawsuit from Nifong wasn't found in a search of online

federal court records by the evening.