Accused in lacrosse team's rape scandal: We're innocent

After the performance ended, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann never saw the exotic dancer who would claim they and another Duke University lacrosse player raped her at an off-campus house, the two men said in an interview aired last night on "60 Minutes."

The CBS interviews marked the first public comment on the case from Finnerty, Seligmann and David Evans, who hosted the party.

The three are accused of holding the dancer against her will in a bathroom of the house and raping her in March. A grand jury indicted all three on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual offense; defense attorneys have proclaimed their innocence.

Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, said he left the party after the two women stopped dancing.

"I left soon after I saw them do their act in the room with everybody else," he said. "I saw them leave the room. I never saw them again in my life."

Also, the second dancer at the party, Kim Roberts, appeared to change her story in the CBS News interview.

After saying in previous interviews that the rape allegations were "a crock," then saying the lacrosse players were "guilty," she now says the other woman gave no indication she was assaulted the night of the party - and actually suggested they go back to make more money.

Roberts said the two women stopped performing after only a few minutes - they had been paid $800 for two hours' work - because one of the men threatened her with a broomstick.

Roberts said she and the other woman then hid in a bathroom while the men in the crowd banged on the door.

"It wasn't, you know, cajoling or it wasn't sweet," she said. "It was they were coaxing us but in their own boyish, rude way."

At that point, Roberts said, she walked out of the house to her car, leaving the other woman alone for five to 10 minutes. When the other woman joined her in the car, Roberts said, she did not indicate that she had been assaulted. She even suggested the two women go back inside to make more money.

Finnerty, a sophomore who because of the charges against him is suspended from Duke, said he doesn't know how or why he and two teammates wound up charged with a rape they say they didn't commit. He said the charges against him will define him for the rest of his life.

"I never expected anyone to get indicted, let alone myself," he said. "It's unbelievable. Don't know how, why, that happened. But try to figure that out; I really have no idea how, how that happened."

Seligmann, 20, from Essex Fells, N.J., said he left the party when the dancers finished because he wasn't having a good time.

"I didn't like the tone of the party, and I just, it made me uncomfortable," he said on the program. "It's as simple as that. I thought it was a boring party and I didn't like the tone."

Evans, 23, the team captain from Bethesda, Md., who hosted the party, said he regrets the decision to combine alcohol, strippers and his lacrosse teammates.

"I was naive, I was young, I was sheltered," he said. "And I made a terrible judgment. In five months, I've learned more than I did in 22 years about life."