Author, radio talk show host and filmmaker Ed Clark
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It was a case that divided the triangle area in March 2006 and beyond. I'm talking about the Duke Lacrosse case when a young exotic dancer and college student alleged that she had been raped at the term residence of two of the team's captains, investigators, and the resolution of the case sparked public discussion of racism, sexual violence, media bias, and due process on college campuses and all over the triangle and beyond. Former lead prosecutor Durham County district attorney Mike knife on ultimately resigned in disgrace was disbarred and briefly imprisoned for violating after standards. The attorney general at that time Roy Cooper declared the three players innocent recently crystal Magnum admitted to fabricating the assault speaking with me today as someone who's been very close to the case and crystal for a long time. Welcome to the show author radio talk show host and filmmaker Ed Clark. How are you Ed? Hey, John, how you doing? Good to talk to you as well. Could you tell us about your connection and your friendship with crystal? Well, so it started out as purely a business arrangement. I got a phone call in the middle of the night from a colleague who was a reporter at the end and I was telling me about the story and within a matter of days I had met crystal and asked her to recall the story to me and at the time I had grave concerns about the case and whether it should move forward or not. However, what I committed to crystal was that I was going to make sure that the attention she needed to get she would get in the whole thing because I probably haven't said it enough, but crystal was dealing with a number of mental health issues and some other things she was drinking heavily at the time and one of the things that I wanted to do is to move the focus away from the lacrosse players onto crystal because Governor Cooper did the right thing. He dropped the charges and that's what should have happened and what will surprise a lot of people is crystal said the same thing a long time ago. There have been multiple interviews with national media CNN, NBC, New York Times, a lot of different places that nobody has ever seen those interviews, so what she said the other day didn't surprise me, it surprised me to timing, but it did not surprise me because she said it before. Now, I know you probably can't get too deep, but what kind of state is crystal in mentally and emotionally now? Well, yeah, I think what's going through her head is she's been in prison now for going on 11, 12 years for what's supposed to be her killing her boyfriend, Reginald Day. What I can tell you about that case is that she probably or not probably, she should not be in jail for the head. The real autopsy results have not been seen by most people. Reginald probably died, more than likely died from a mistake in the hospital. Now, of course, he was in there because of the altercation he had with crystal. However, I think crystal got some bad advice, not for me, to go to trial because they felt like they could beat the case because of this faulty autopsy report from the state of North Carolina. Unfortunately, crystal believes that it's because of her connection to Duke that she did not get a fair shot, and she said as much in her interview, which is problematic for me because I hate the two cases being completed, right? I think if I had advised her, I would have said don't even mention the Duke La Crosse case, talk about why you believe the autopsy should be reviewed and get your day in court over there. But of course, she's her own person, but to your question, I do think that from time
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