Crystal Mangum, the woman at the center of the 2006 Duke University lacrosse rape scandal, has admitted to making up her allegations that three players on the team gangraped her. The admission comes 18 years after the explosive case sparked a national conversation about race, privilege and prosecutorial misconduct.
Mangum, who is currently serving a prison sentence for a 2013 second-degree murder conviction, made the confession during an interview on the podcast Let’s Talk with Kat, recorded at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women.
“I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me,” Mangum said during the interview, which was published on Thursday.