Cops: E-Mail Details Second Duke Lacrosse Party
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A Duke University lacrosse player, one of several students involved in a scandal in which an exotic dancer claims to have been raped, planned on having a second party with strippers, according to a Durham police search warrant, WRAL.com reported on Wednesday.
Police searching a student’s dorm room and car discovered an e-mail that they believe came from lacrosse player Ryan McFadyen: "… after tonights show, i've decided to have some strippers over to edens 2c. all are welcome. however there will be no nudity. i plan on killing the b——— as soon as the walk in and proceding to cut their skin off …,” an exact copy of the e-mail reads.
Police believe the e-mail’s sender, "41," is Ryan McFadyen, whose number on the lacrosse team is also 41. The correspondence was sent March 14, a day after a dancer claims she was sodomized, raped and robbed by three of the lacrosse players at the party.
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"The e-mail's language is vile," McFadyen's lawyer, Bob Ekstrand, told WRAL.com. "It is also perfectly consistent with the boys' assertion that no sexual assault took place that night. The time stamp on the e-mail of 1:58 a.m. — shortly after the party — is more evidence of a lack of a guilty mind."
Duke President Richard Brodhead decided to suspend the lacrosse team from play "until there is a clearer resolution of the legal situation involving team members," the university said on Tuesday.
"In this painful period of uncertainty, it is clear to me, as it was to the players, that it would be inappropriate to resume the normal schedule of play," Brodhead said.
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The case has roiled the campus, raised racial tensions and heightened antagonism between the affluent students at Duke, which costs about $43,000 a year, and the city of Durham, which has a large population of poor people and is about evenly divided between white and black.
Police took DNA samples with a cheek swab from 46 of the lacrosse team's 47 players on a judge's order. The 47th player, the only black member of the team, did not have to provide DNA because the dancer said her attackers were white.
The university's athletic director had already forced the team to miss two games because of underage drinking and the hiring of dancers at the party. Duke, considered a national title contender before the season began, has a 6-2 record with five regular-season games to go.
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The Associated Press and WRAL.com contributed to this report.