Rape case crawls through court

As the Duke lacrosse team comes to Long Island this week, the criminal probe that cut short the team's season last March is wending its way slowly through North Carolina state courts.

The three players accused of raping a woman hired as an exotic dancer for an off-campus lacrosse party are due back in a Durham County court Oct. 27.

The dancer's allegations in March prompted Duke's president, Richard Brodhead, to suspend and later cancel the Blue Devils' season.

Brodhead reinstated the program in June.

John Danowski, former head coach of Hofstra University's lacrosse team and the father of standout Duke player Matt Danowski, was tapped to head the program after Duke's coach, Mike Pressler, quit when the rape allegations surfaced.

The dancer, a student at North Carolina Central University and the mother of two, said she was raped at an off-campus party on March 13.

Those indicted in the case include Collin Finnerty of Garden City, David Evans of Bethesda, Md., and Reade Seligmann of Essex Fells, N.J. They are charged with rape, kidnapping and first-degree sex offense.

Mike Nifong, the Durham County district attorney whose handling of the case has been both praised and criticized, has said the case probably will not come to trial before next spring. Nifong's handling of the case was at the center of a Democratic primary race, which he won, in his bid for a new term in November.