Say What Now? Woman Admits She Lied About Duke Lacrosse Players Raping Her Nearly 20 Years Ago: ‘I Made Up a Story’

Mangum made the confession during an appearance on the Let’s Talk with Kat podcast.

“I made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God,” Mangum said, adding that Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans “didn’t deserve” what she put them through’

The woman who falsely accused three former Duke University lacrosse players of raping her at a party nearly 20 years ago has admitted that she lied about the allegations.

Crystal Mangum, a former exotic dancer, made the confession during an appearance on the Let’s Talk with Kat podcast, hosted by Katerena DePasquale, and asked the players she had accused — Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans — for forgiveness.

The episode, which was released on Wednesday, Dec. 11, according to the campus newspaper, the Duke Chronicle, was recorded on Nov. 13 at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. Mangum is currently in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder of her then-boyfriend in 2013, per the outlet.

During the recording, Mangum stated that she doesn’t have any regrets and “everything happens to get everybody to the point where they are, it’s all to show God’s love and his forgiveness,” before saying that she made up the allegations about being raped in 2006.

“I’m a living witness of God’s forgiveness,” Mangum said. “That night, Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans, they took me into their home and they trusted. The Bible says that you shouldn’t do harm to your neighbor that lives trustingly beside you, and they were my brothers and they trusted me that I wouldn’t betray their trust and 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.”

“I made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God, and that was wrong when God already loved me for who I was regardless,” Mangum continued. “I didn’t need to seek validation from him because I already had it, I just didn’t know it, and I hurt my brothers.”

Mangum then asked Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans for forgiveness.

“I want them to know that I love them and they didn’t deserve that and I hope they can forgive me,” she added. “And I hope they can heal and trust God and know that God loves them.”

Before now, Mangum had never publicly stated that she made up the allegations.

In her 2008 book Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story, Mangum wrote, “I will never say that nothing at all happened that night,” per the Duke Chronicle.

According to the outlet, Mangum expressed her desire to apologize to the players in her response to DePasquale’s request for an interview. “It’s been on my heart to do a public apology concerning the Duke lacrosse case,” Mangum wrote to DePasquale in a letter obtained by the outlet. “I actually lied about the incident to the public, my family, my friends and to God about it, and I’m not proud about it.”

As previously reported by PEOPLE in 2006, Mangum, then a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University, told police she was attacked by the three men — who were aged 20, 19, and 23, at the time — in a bathroom at a March 13 Duke lacrosse team party where she’d been hired to perform.

According to local media outlet WRAL, citing court records, Mangum initially told police in Durham, N.C., she was raped, sodomized and beaten for a 30-minute period while trapped in a bathroom in the early hours of March 14, 2006.

Based on Mangum’s claims at the time, Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans were each charged with multiple crimes including rape. None of the players’ DNA was found on or inside the accuser’s body, and ultimately, Mangum’s account was debunked, with prosecutors ultimately declaring the players innocent.

After the case against the players collapsed, Mike Nifong, the District Attorney who had originally charged the players, was disbarred in 2007 for unethical conduct, including withholding exculpatory evidence and making inflammatory public statements.

The Associated Press reports Mangum’s mental stability was questioned.

Per the Duke Chronicle, Cooper did not prosecute Mangum for perjury after the case was dismissed. He said at the time that the investigators thought “she may have actually believed the many different stories that she has been telling.”

After their case was dismissed in April 2007, Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans sued former University President Richard Brodheads and the University, according to the outlet. The case resulted in an undisclosed settlement.