Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - False Accusations Destroyed Them - The Duke Lacrosse / Crystal Mangum story

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

The Duke Lacrosse case erupted in 2006 when three members of the Duke University lacrosse team were accused of sexually assaulting an exotic dancer, Crystal Mangum, at a team party. The allegations sparked national outrage, racial tensions, and debates about privilege and justice. However, the case fell apart when inconsistencies in Mangum’s story emerged, and DNA evidence did not implicate the accused players. North Carolina’s Attorney General ultimately declared the players innocent, condemning the prosecutor’s misconduct.

It's the Paradise Podcast. I am your host, Ryan Michelle Bethay, with my husband Sterling. What's up? Join us here on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise. I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fogelman, James Marsden, Shailene Woodley, Julian Nicholson, and Sterling Calbee Brown.

Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming. And stream Paradise on Kulu and Kulu on Disney Plus. So this adult dancer is about to make some false accusations against some guys and essentially try and ruin their lives. Now let's call her Precious because that's her stage name. And Precious is 27, she's a college student, and Precious is also an adult dancer at a local gentleman's club. And one day in 2006, Precious gets hired to perform at a local college party for a bunch of the school's athletes. And so she gets to the party and there are like 50 college bros there. And Precius, she likes to party herself.

In fact, she's already intoxicated by the time she gets there. I guess she was drinking and taking prescription muscle relaxers. Now, I guess the guys throwing the party had hired two dancers, because there's also another stripper there. Her name's Kim. And Kim and Precius, they don't know each other. And so anyway, so the guys pay them $400 each, and Kim and Precius start performing for them, like putting on their little show.

And so who are these guys who are throwing this party? Well, they're the lacrosse team of Duke University, and they're drunk and they're rowdy, and they're really just out to have a good time. Meanwhile, Precious is so wasted off the alcohol and pills that she falls over in the middle of the performance. And the rowdy college guys are like, boo, that's so lame. Then one of the guys grabs a broomstick and he holds it up and he's like, one of y'all ladies should use this as a sex toy. And of course, the dancers are by this and they stop dancing and Kim is like, nah, this show's over. And they walk away and they go into one of the nearby bathrooms.

And so the lacrosse guys are like, where do strippers go? And they're all angry and they're like, boo! We want our money back! Then a few minutes later, things escalate and Precious and Kim are yelling at some of the guys to leave them alone. Because at this point, Kim, she just wants to leave. But unfortunately, some of the guys don't want to pay them. They want their money back because the girls didn't finish the show. And so finally the guys are like, all right, we'll just pay you $100. Just leave.

And so they agree. They agree to that. Then Kim goes out to her car to change her clothes, while Precious is still so wasted that she passes out in the house. So then Kim's got to go back in the house to get Precious and she puts her wasted ass in the car. Then she goes back in the house again to get Precious's bag, because I guess she left her bag in there.

And when Kim gets back to the car, Precious is now up and awake, walking around, stumbling, topless, yelling at everyone, and fighting with a bunch of the guys. But eventually, Kim gets Precious into the car and they leave. But while in the car, Precious's drunk ass passes out again. And Kim is like, damn it, I don't know where this woman lives. I don't even know her real name. Where do I even take her? Because remember, they didn't know each other before this party.

And so Kim has to pull over to a grocery store parking lot and she finds a security guard and she asks her to call the police. And so then police show up and they take them. Precius to the hospital for detox because she's so wasted. Later, at the hospital, she's awake now, and they're processing her and they're asking her what happened, and they ask her if she was sexually assaulted earlier that night. I believe that's a standard question they ask everyone. And for whatever reason, we still don't really know why, Precius says yes. And she tells them this whole story about how some of the lacrosse guys grabbed her and pulled her out of Kim's car and dragged her into the bathroom,

and S-Aid her. And holy sh-caboo, that kicks off this whole criminal investigation, and suddenly the police are involved. And Precious, she just keeps going with this story. She points the finger at three specific guys at the party who she says did it. And so, bam, police arrest two of them. Here's one guy's mugshot, here's another guy's mugshot. And the third guy later turns himself in voluntarily.

And so this story blows up. It's all over the news nationwide. I mean, three privileged elitist Duke lacrosse players, SA, to poor, helpless, exotic dancer's single mother? How could they? But then, it gets crazier because the district attorney gets involved. This guy, Nifong. And Nifong decides that he's going to prosecute this case

and send these Duke boys to prison for a long time. Not only that, it's an election year for him. And he's up for re-election, and he knows this is now a very high-profile case, as the whole country is watching. So he plans to leverage all this media attention he's about to get and win his reelection. And so, boom, immediately he's out there talking to reporters,

publicly dragging these Duke boys' names through the mud, and saying that he has no doubt that they're guilty. In fact, in his first week on the case, he does over 50 interviews with news media calling these Duke boys out. And around the same time, students on Duke campus are holding big anti-Saysay, rallies and calling out the lacrosse team sometimes by name. Not only that, Duke University

themselves have to respond and take action. And they eventually ban the three accused lacrosse players from campus. Like they straight up just kicked them out of school over this. Then they even fired the lacrosse coach for some reason. Bro, wasn't even at the party. And then also the university suspends the entire season of lacrosse for everyone. Like they just straight up canceled it. Meanwhile, the three accused Duke boys get their DNA tested to see if it matches DNA found on precious that night. And guess what? It's not a match. In fact, DNA found on her doesn't match any of the 40 players that were at the party that night. And so the lab gives these DNA test results to Nyfong, the district attorney. Now this should be the end of the case right

then and there. The DNA says the boys didn't do it. But instead of submitting this to the court or to the defense, Nifong withholds it. He withholds the evidence. Then he orders a second DNA test to see if he can get different results, results more in his favor. But no, the second test shows the same thing. The DNA doesn't match any of the lacrosse players. And so then Nifong asked the director in charge of the report to leave some of that information off the lab report. And the director agrees to do it. In fact, Nifong withholds all kinds of evidence from the defense. which attorneys are not allowed to do. And to make it worse, Precius' story about what happened that night keeps changing. It changes dramatically each time she tells it. While the three accused Duke boys, on the other hand, they have solid alibis,

as two of them had left the party that night before the alleged SA had even occurred. So none of this looks good for Precious or Nyfong's case. Anyway, eventually, the defense team catches on that Nifong's been withholding and tampering with evidence and so they start accusing him of prosecutorial misconduct. And so then, Nifong has no choice, and he has to go and drop the charges against all three lacrosse boys,

and the boys are finally fully exonerated. Then, Nifong, because he intentionally withheld evidence from the court and other acts of fraud, he gets disbarred, so he's no longer allowed to practice law. He also later gets removed from office over all this, so he's no longer district attorney. He also gets found in contempt of court, and he gets sentenced to one day in jail.

While the Duke boys, they file a lawsuit and sue Duke University over the way they handled this, and the university ends up settling with them out of court for a large amount of money. Allegedly, each of the accused boys got $20 million each. But that's just alleged, because we don't actually know the amount. It was never publicly disclosed.

While Precious, who made the false allegations in the first place, nothing happens to her. No legal punishment, no jail time. She just moves on with her life. Like later, she goes on to graduate college. She writes a book. And in that book, she still maintains that she was essayed that night. But whatever the case, there are no consequences for her,

and she doesn't see any prison time. Until, over four years go by. And it's now 2011. And Precious, she's still out there, her life. And one night, she's at her apartment and she and her boyfriend get into a fight, like a really bad fight, and she ends up stabbing him with a kitchen knife. And so, bam, she gets arrested. Here's her mugshot. Ten days later, in the hospital, her boyfriend, unfortunately, dies. And so she gets convicted of second-degree murder and she's sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Then in 2024, Precious does an interview from prison where she finally admits that she lied about the whole lacrosse team essay thing. I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn't and that was wrong. That is insane.