Fellow Dancer Amends Account in Duke Rape Case

Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:

Three members of the Duke University lacrosse team remain under indictment for rape. The players deny they assaulted an exotic dancer at a party back in March. The woman who brought the charges has made very few public statements, but recently NPR's Senior Correspondent Juan Williams went to Durham, North Carolina and spoke with the other dancer who performed at the team party.

JUAN WILLIAMS reporting:

The second dancer is 31-year-old Kim Roberts - part Korean, part black. She didn't know the other woman before they met outside a house across from the Duke campus.

According to court documents, the dancers were hired at a cost of $400 each. Kim Roberts says it was supposed to be a small bachelor party for five or 10 adult men.

Ms. KIM ROBERTS: I can't say for sure if they requested white girls, but I know that at least one white girl was requested, and the other girl that they expected was Hispanic. And being that I am of mixed race, I'm sure that they assumed that I was the Hispanic one; and they were, of course, waiting now for the white girl to arrive. And almost - it's kind of funny, because almost as soon as all this conversation was going on, lo and behold, here comes the other dancer around the corner and she's obviously not a white girl.

WILLIAMS: Are they upset? Do they object?

Ms. ROBERTS: Well, yeah. They are very hesitant now if they want to continue with this. They're not exactly sure, you know. So, anyway, they decided, you know, to go for it.

WILLIAMS: And you have called the escort service...

Ms. ROBERTS: Yep.

WILLIAMS: ...say, we're here, everything's cool.

Ms. ROBERTS: Everything's good, you know. We feel safe.

WILLIAMS: Okay, so, from the back of the house, the two of you go inside.

Ms. ROBERTS: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: And are subjected to, like, racial stuff or lewd suggestions.

Ms. ROBERTS: Right.

WILLIAMS: Then you go out; you decide, I'm uncomfortable.

Ms. ROBERTS: Right.

WILLIAMS: And leave.

Ms. ROBERTS: Yep.

WILLIAMS: Because...

Ms. ROBERTS: I run outside and lock my car doors.

WILLIAMS: With the other dancer or by yourself?

Ms. ROBERTS: No, by myself. You know, I had to look out for myself and I couldn't really - no, I won't - I can't - I'm not going to talk about this too much. But I was outside. We were separated for a point when I was outside.

WILLIAMS: Roberts says the other dancer soon joined her in the car. Some men came out to demand a refund because the women had danced for fewer than five minutes. She says the men also made racist comments. Roberts says the other dancer got out of the car and went back inside to get a purse. Roberts nervously waited in the car, chain-smoking.

She's unsure how much time passed. Roberts went back into the house to look for the other woman, but didn't see her. It's during this time that the rape allegedly occurred. When she returned to the car, someone yelled that the other dancer was passed out on the porch. Roberts asked the men to help the woman get to the car.

Ms. ROBERTS: She's taking steps on her own, but her head is down, and she gets into the car slumped over that same way - slumped is a good word to use.

WILLIAMS: Did she smell of alcohol?

Ms. ROBERTS: No.

WILLIAMS: Roberts says this is what happened next. The players continued to make racial insults. Roberts threw angry words back at them, mocking their manhood. Eventually, Roberts called 911 from the car in tears to report that the young men were calling them niggers. Then she drove the barely conscious dancer to a grocery store parking lot and got help from the police.

When police arrived, they assumed the woman was drunk and tried to revive her.

Ms. ROBERTS: They tried to give her smelling salts, and the smelling salts didn't work.

WILLIAMS: And they put her in an ambulance or a police car?

Ms. ROBERTS: Uh-uh, police car.

WILLIAMS: In a police car. And you drove away?

Ms. ROBERTS: Yep. They said - you know, I made sure - I said it so many times, because I really felt bad, so I asked many times if they would please treat her with respect and she didn't do anything wrong and I didn't want to see her in the back of a police car.

WILLIAMS: So, initially, when you were asked, you know, later about something happened, and you hear that...

Ms. ROBERTS: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: ...there are allegations, you say, I don't know anything, I never saw any rape or...

Ms. ROBERTS: (Unintelligible) rape - you know, I can't help you. I didn't see a rape. I don't know what you people are talking about, basically.

WILLIAMS: But then, at some point, you changed your mind about...

Ms. ROBERTS: The fact that it even could have occurred.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

Ms. ROBERTS: That's really what I changed my mind about. I...

WILLIAMS: And what was that moment? When did this...

Ms. ROBERTS: When I started to see...

WILLIAMS: ...what did you learn or see or something?

Ms. ROBERTS: ...okay, first of all, one of the things that I learned was the fact that she was 27. I found out that she knew how to drink; you know, what I mean? So it made me wonder as to why in the world was she so out of it, you know. And also, I didn't even want to imagine that something like that could happen to her and I'm 20 feet away.

I can never say that a rape did or did not occur; that's for the courts to decide. I didn't see it happen, you know. But what I can say is that there was opportunity and that it could have happened. You have to entertain the fact that it's possible it didn't, but it's possible it did.

WILLIAMS: Last week, defense lawyers filed papers highlighting statements made by Roberts to the police on the night of the incident. At that time, she said the possibility of a rape was, quote, "a crock," because she said she'd only been away from the alleged victim for a few minutes the entire night. The woman making the charges told police she was raped for 30 minutes.

Roberts has been convicted of embezzling $25,000 from an employer and remains on probation. In addition, the woman charging rape had alleged that she was raped 10 years earlier. That case was never prosecuted.

Meanwhile, Roberts, who attended the University of North Carolina for two years, will be a key witness at the trial, which could start as early as this fall. That will be about the same time that the Duke lacrosse team will get back together to begin preparations for a new season.

Juan Williams, NPR News.

Copyright ©2009 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.