via Drudge:

Rape Charges Dropped in Duke Case  

Prosecutors dropped rape charges Friday against three Duke University lacrosse players accused of attacking a stripper at a team party,

But… 

but the three still face kidnapping and sexual offense charges, a defense attorney said.

This whole case has never made sense.  Consider this:

Joseph Cheshire and attorneys for the other players have said for months the woman told several different versions of the alleged assault.

Cheshire said Friday that the accuser now says she does not know if she was penetrated, which he said led District Attorney Mike Nifong to dismiss the rape charges.

Nifong did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The accuser, a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University, has said three men raped her in a bathroom at a March 13 team party where she was hired to perform as a stripper.

The players _ Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann _ all say they are innocent. Their attorneys have consistently said no sex occurred at the party and have cited a lack of DNA evidence in the case as proof of their clients’ innocence.

Of course the big news was this:

"It’s highly coincidental," Cheshire said, that the charges are being dropped a week after the director of a private DNA testing lab acknowledged that he initially, with Nifong’s knowledge, withheld from the defense test results showing none of the players’ DNA was found on or in the accuser’s body.

Nifong seems like he has been driving this case for publicity all along and this just continues to show that.  The whole thing is getting silly. 

Allah Pundit Notes:

Have any of you followed this closely? All I know is that apparently DNA from a number of men was found inside the accuser after the attack; that none of it matches the defendants’; and that D.A. Nifong allegedly conspired to cover up that fact. Susan Estrich calls it an “extreme case of lawlessness by the prosecutors” that warrants Nifong being replaced by the court.

In other words, they’re being railroaded. Anything else I need to know?

Naw, that seems to sum it up.

La Shawn Barber has been on this in detail all along.  See more here.

See also:

Sister Toldjah, Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Stop the ACLU (who also wonders why the ACLU is not Defending the Players), Blue Star Chronicles

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