Imagine, if you will, Jarriel L. Johnson under cross-examination

Hat tip: The Johnsville News

Handwritten Statement of Jarriel Lanier Johnson, Raleigh, NC. The driver for Crystal Gail Mangum made - 6:37 - 7:50 p.m. April 6, 2006

[statement starts on Friday, March 10, 2006]

I was called by Crystal on March 10, 2006 to drive her to Holiday Inn Express in Wakefield.

[Saturday, March 11, 2006]

I picked her up at her parents house around 1:50 p.m. She said her appointment was at 2 p.m. We arrived at the hotel around 2:20 p.m. After I dropped her off I returned home. About 2:50 p.m. I left to pick Crystal up at the hotel. After we left the hotel we returned to her parents home. There we stayed for a couple of hours until about 7 p.m. At that time I asked her if we could go to my parents house so I could shower. With my parents being there we decided to come back to Durham. Once back in Durham we rode around for about half an hour, then we went to Forest Hill Park. We stayed there for about an hour or so. Then Crystal asked me if I would take her to Hillsborough. We got to Platinum around 11 or 12 where she went in and I remained in the car.

[Sunday, March 12, 2006]

Around 2 a.m. I go inside to find her, she asks if we can stay for about another hour. She then asks me if we can stay just one more hour. We leave at 4:30 when the club closes. She then tells me that she has a job at the Millennium Hotel. We get there at 5:15 a.m., where she goes in and I remain in the car. At about 6:15 a.m. she returns and I drive her back to her parent's home. We say good bye and I head back to Raleigh. I arrive at my parents home at 7 a.m. and go to bed. Around 2 p.m. that afternoon Crystal calls me asking if I could drive her that night. I agree and ask what time, she says around 4 p.m. As I get close to her parents house she calls me and says that Matt [Matthew Murchison, her boyfriend] is coming over to bring her something. I told her that I would wait until she called me at the the car wash on Fayetteville St. Around 5-5:30 p.m. she calls me and tells me that he's gone. About 5-10 minutes later I arrive at her parent's house. Her daughter lets me in. I sit there and play with her kids while Crystal is getting ready. Once she is ready we leave and ride around for about half an hour. We then go over to Forest Hills Park and sit and talk. Around 8 or 9 she asks if we could go to Raleigh to find this guy she met. I say okay. We drive around downtown Raleigh trying to find this guy. We have no luck so we decide to get a hotel room and wait to see if he calls. This is about 9 p.m. or so. We go to get something to at a Chinese place over on Wake Forest Rd. Once we get our food we take it back to the hotel and eat. After eating we get into bed and watch TV. While watching TV we engage in sexual intercourse.

[Monday, March 13, 2006 - Day of the Duke Lacrosse Party]

Around 12 a.m. I leave. I tell her to call me in the morning so I could pick her up. At around 11 a.m. Crystal calls me asking me to pick her up. I arrive at the hotel around 11:30 am. I call Crystal to see where she is and she tells me that she went for a walk. I drive up and down Lane St. trying to find her. She calls me back asking me to meet her at the hotel.When I arrive she is with an older gentleman that she says wants to see her perform. I go back down and wait in my car until I see the man come out. After I see him leave I go to the room and help Crystal gather her things. We then head over to my parents house and hang out for about 20 min. I told Crystal that I was going to wash my car and she suggest we go to one of the pay car washes. While there I began to wash my car while she talked on the phone. I then told her that I was taking her home. On the way to I-540 she told me she needed to use the bathroom and wanted me to pull over. Once I did she got out of the car and started walking down Creedmoor Rd. I pulled my car over and got out to chase her down. She told me to leave her alone. I went back to my car and pulled up in front of her. Once again I pulled over and asked her to get in. She again told me to leave her alone. I went up several yards and waited until she came towards me; again I asked her to get in the car. She then got in. We went back to my parents house where we talked it out. We sat on the couch for a little while and then went to my bedroom. While there we talked and she knocked over her drink which spilled on my phone. After that it was around 4-4:30 p.m. and I took Crystal back to her parent's house. Later on that night I noticed that my phone wasn't working properly. I called Crystal and told her that it was mess up. At that time she told me that she had a bachelor party to work that night, and asked if I could drive. I agreed. Later on that night I couldn't get my phone to work and called her to let her know that it's not working and wouldn't be able to take her. She said that was okay and that Brian would take her. I told her to call me when she got home and she said okay. About 1 a.m. or 1:30 a.m. I received a call from Tammy asking if I was Crystal's driver that night. I told her no and she hung up. I tried calling Crystal for the next couple of days and didn't hear from her until Thursday. Looking at my datebook on my cell phone I realized that the dates that I engaged in sexual intercourse with Crystal was off by a week. Our last encounter together was the Sunday prior.

Friend. Lover. Confidant. Guradian Angel. Driver. Record Keeper.

Too funny.

Best cartoon ever.

The Media Rush To Duke's Defense

By Andrew Cohen, Imbecile

My Rebuttal Letter to the WP Editor:

Andrew Cohen Proves Fools Don’t Always Rush In

After reading Andrew Cohen’s latest tripe suggesting a media “Rush to Duke’s Defense” (June 27th), one cannot but conclude that he has just awoken, bearded like Rip Van Winkle, and sauntered on over to have a looksie at what all this fuss in Durham is about. His base premise, that journalists “are tripping all over themselves to quickly and repetitively report the biased view of the young men’s defense…” when, “[u]sually, reporters breathlessly take everything prosecutors and the police say at face value, often to devastating effect upon criminal defendants,” could not be more uninformed, vacuous, misleading and ironic.

Cohen obviously missed the first month and a half of mainstream media coverage of this hoax. He obviously missed the breathless rush to publish and air every slanderous utterance of D.A. Nifong during his more than 70 press briefings within the first five days of the story breaking into the mainstream press. He obviously missed the breathless rush to convey to a nation Nifong’s “absolute certainty” that these privileged “hooligans” had committed the alleged crime. He obviously missed the breathless rush to report Nifong's suggestion that the accuser was given a "date rape" drug on the evening in question, despite no blood work having been taken of the accuser at the hospital in the twenty four hours immediately following the alleged event. He obviously missed the breathless rush to televise Nifong physically acting out, with great dramatic flair, the manner in which the accuser was allegedly choked from behind, although she specifically denied having been choked to both the SANE nurse-in-training and the investigating police officer at the hospital. He obviously missed journalists "tripping all over themselves" to report Nifong's smug dismissal of the importance of DNA results to the strength of his case with the assertion that DNA evidence would not be likely to be found if the attackers used condoms. Turns out that the accuser has specifically denied condom use by her attackers at the time of the alleged event. He obviously missed the repeated airings of the “Wanted Poster,” which referenced both the Durham Police Department and local CrimeStoppers organization, bore the team “mug shots” of 43 white players, and urged them all to “Please Come Forward.” He obviously missed the television footage of lacrosse players entering the Durham Police lab to voluntarily submit their DNA samples. While their heads were covered under advice of counsel to avoid individual identification in media airings, they nonetheless appeared, in the skewed aired snippets, every bit guilty rapists. Cohen obviously missed Nifong’s Blitzkrieg pandering to the black community in advance of his primary election, his suggestion that the players were hiding behind their rich "daddies," and his vow not to allow "some Duke lacrosse players raping a poor black girl" to be the nation's impression of Durham. Cohen obviously missed the laughable, if innumerable, media pieces virtually equating the “criminal” team behavior of open-container possessions and public urination with a predisposition to rape.

The mainstream media did in this case exactly what Cohen says it “usually does…to devastating effect upon criminal defendants.” Too bad Cohen missed it.

Only now, as it becomes clearer by the day that the remaining “certainty” regarding Nifong’s Folly is its ultimate dismissal on motion for lack of prima facie proof, is the media “tripping all over themselves” to wipe the egg off their collective faces and get it right.

~NDLax84
Franklin Lakes, New Jersey