Transcripts For CSPAN Q A 20140421

Duke rape case. I am talking about the duke lacrosse scandal once known as the rape case. It happened in 2006, march 2006. To april 2007. By the way, it is still ongoing. That is another topic. At the time, it was the flight 370 at the time. Everybody was focused. When i went back to researching this and to study this and write about as a duke alum, i wanted to know what happened. There was never a trial and i wanted this book to be the trial that never happened. I was surprised at how few people wanted to talk about this. How few people were very happy with the outcome that had been resolved by the attorney general of North Carolina who declared these boys innocent which is a very unusual legal term usually in a court of law, somebody is declared not guilty or guilty. The concept of innocence is foreign to the legal profession. I wanted to know what happened here. I was shocked at how difficult it was to get people to talk to me, including people at duke. When i spoke to Dick Brodhead and told him i was doing this, his first reaction is why . Why are you doing this . We are beyond this. This is over. Please do not dredge it up again. We are talking about the price of silence and you said it could cost duke 100 million. Break that down. Each boy, each of the three indicted players got 20 million. Is it public or something you found out . Foundt is something i out. One of the players had some publicity about this and received a tax bill from the irs which was written about in a detroit paper. If you do the arithmetic, you can get the idea he was taxed based on Something Like a 20 million payment and this has since been confirmed to me. And that was of course, that is 60 million. Right there. There was a settlement with coach pressler who was fired. The lacrosse coach. They had to resettle with him because he brought a libel suit against the university when they paid 20 million to each of the players. Guess what . The rest of the players on the team, the nonindicted players also sued duke. To get some money, 30 players. It was resolved in february of last year. They got cash and settlements. One lawsuit still remains among three of the players. One including Ryan Mcfadden who wrote the horrible email that caused a huge controversy at the time. Between legal fees and settlement fees and pr spin and legal investigation, basically 100 million. Plus at this time. Give us i know you do not want to quote specific words. Ryan mcfaddens email said what . Over all . He was one of the sophomores on the team. One of the players there that was never in or near the bathroom never accused of anything. He was just doing the usual underage drinking that is so prevalent. After the party, he went back to his dorm and wrote an email thinking he was writing to his fellow players on the team thinking he was quoting an ellis novel, paraphrasing an ellis novel. Basically, he talked about wanting to reprise the party that they had come from, but this time he was going to essentially paraphrasing, kill the women instead of just treating them like they did this time and doing other things to them. It was a very unfortunate email, very vulgar email. As a result of that email which he thought he had sent to his colleagues on the lacrosse team, and, again, this was march 2006, when our knowledge of social media and how these things get around not quite as sophisticated as today, that email got to the police. Somebody from duke turned it over to the police they saw the email. It was about 10 days later after the incident. Basically, all hell broke loose. At that point. People were being given the benefit of the doubt until that point. Once the email was made public on april 5 after they searched Ryan Mcfaddens room, the coach was fired, the season was canceled. After the suspension, he eventually came back. It was a huger issue than it was. A couple of quick things. Where do you live now . New york city. What do you do . I am a fulltime writer. I graduated from duke in 1991. Who was the president there . A guy by the name of Terry Sanford who was a progressive governor from the state of North Carolina and a great leader and a great man and educator. By the way, i love duke and i am a loyal alum. I did not do this to hurt duke. I did this to figure out what happened. In a dispassionate way. Again, there is a tremendous amount of passion about this story even to this day. All one has to do is go to amazon and see ive amassed 25 onestar reviews. Even though it has not been out a week and is a 600 page book. So i am pretty much guessing onestarmany of those reviews have read the book. My last book was about Goldman Sachs and people have a lot of passion about that. This is in another realm. Durham, North Carolina. Is where . In the triangle. In the center of the state near raleigh and chapel hill. It is called the triangle because Triangle Park is there. Very famous biotech and technology and Research Center and anchored by North Carolina state, duke, and a unc. Hugef course, tehre are sports rivalry especially in basketball. How many students are there at the school . Duke has about 6000 undergraduates. About 1500 per class. In the subtitle of your book, the duke lacrosse scandal and the power of the elite and the corruption of our great universities. Why did you expand it beyond the scandal itself . Universities. Because i was amazed at a couple of things as i did my research into this. Number one, duke, an institution is not that much different than a wall street bank that i have written three other books about. It is a very secretive institution. They have their myths and ways of doing business. They have a lot of power in the state of North Carolina and nationally. They have a huge source of wealth in their endowment which is approaching 9 billion in the midst of a 3 billion endowment campaign. Where would that put them nationally . Certainly in the top 10. I think m. I. T. Has 10 billion. Harvard has 33 billion, 34 billion. They are not in that league, but they have an ambition to be in that league. That is part of the story. Part of dukes ambition. The school is only 75 years old. It is not at the 350 year old school that harvard is. Part of the reason that duke has the new president is because he was the former dean of yale college and wellrespected educator and to duke wanted to get into the top elite of Academic Institutions in this country and also athletic institutions. It is a very interesting balancing act that duke is trying to do. Really, only stanford and northwest try to do it. Duke has been successful. Topnotch athletics and topnot academics. This incident, it had unfortunately corrupted the university. I want to go back. This is a clip from cnn. Nancy grace back in 2006 right after this happened just to show the intensity of this issue. As you said earlier, it was like the 370 flight that went on and on. Let us watch. [video clip] david miller, what is your reaction to the indictment . And the arrests . I speak for many students that we are very concerned that two innocent people may have had their lives ruined. Lord. You said it is not possible. Im not saying it is not possible. A grand jury has heard evidence. We are saying never hear what the victim has to say im not saying i am not convinced. Your first problem is 2 innocent peopple. I said we are concerned it is possible that two innocent people may have had their lives ruined. There are many inconsistencies. Do you have a sister . I do. Your first concern is false accused. Y do not tell me what my first concern is. Those were the first words out of your mouth. What are you seeing there . Passion. This story just generated a lot of rushes to judgment. A lot of passion. It had a dog bites man quality to it. The idea that the three privileged, elite, white lacrosse players had raped a poor, single mother a black woman trying to put herself through North Carolina Central University by stripping. It got people cuckoo. How did you approach doing this . Completely dispassionately. City. Lieve in new york when did you start working on this and why . I started working on it about three years ago. As a duke alum, i felt the whole story completely distorted, first as you saw was nancy grace that if these kids are absolutely guilty right of the bat. And the prosecutor did not do himself any favors by spending the week on television regularly declaring the kids guilty. Then the whole narrative changed. Next thing you know, these kids had been railroaded and this woman is bipolar nifong is the worst thing, as the antichrist. The whole narrative got turned on its head. And then, you have a resolution where these kids are paid 20 million each and the university spends 100 million to preserve the brand. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to be able to look back thanks to the lawsuits, one of which is still ongoing. There has been more evidence that has come to the light. Than ever existed before. I was able to talk to a number of people who had never spoken up before. I am an investigator reporter. I do not see that much a difference between Goldman Sachs and Duke University. Who did not speak to you . Me, dicksuprisingly to brodhead would not talk to me. I asked, a number of times. I was sure as the president , my alma mater, knowing my reputation as a serious Investigative Journalism, he would have the courtesy to meet with me for the even maybe repeat what he said hundreds of times during the course of the event. Insistently would not. Lets show the audience what president brodhead looks like. This from his apology he made during those times. [video clip] Duke University Richard Brodhead said there are many lessons that need to be learned from the lacrosse case speaking, and speaking at an ethics commission, he apologizes to the three players and their families about how the university handled the situation. We caused the families to feel abandoned when they were in need of support. This was a mistake. I take responsibility. The three members were charged after an exotic dancer claimed she was raped. At a team party back in march 2006. A year later, roy cooper declared them innocent. These cases are over. But prior to the university, the lacrosse season was canceled. Drawingd warned of conclusions. If there is one lesson the world should take from the case is the lesson of the danger of prejudgment and our need to defend against it at every turn. What could he have said in your opinion . I think this prejudgment works both ways. I mean, people were prejudging these kids without the evidence being fully aired. It was never a trial here. And just as quickly as people prejudge these kids, they prejudge chrystal magnum, the victim who became known as the accuser. They prejudge mike nifong who had been an attorney for 28 years. Durham. Pected in overnight, he becomes an evil conspiratorial individual whos out to get these three duke students. I mean, i think that unfortunately, the pendulum swung so quickly and duke decided they needed to get it behind it and paid 100 million a get behind it and move on. I mean, i know with interest, it showed the picture of the lacrosse house where the party occurred. That house is the wiped off the face of the earth. Down, andeen taken now it is an empty lot. Also roy cooper, the state attorney. When mike nifong was forced to recuse himself, he turned it over to roy cooper who did a fourmonth investigation before declaring the boys innocent in 2007. April 11. You asked who never talked to me. Roy cooper never talked to me. He has a right. He is the attorney general of North Carolina. If he is going to declare the students innocent, i would think he would spend time with a serious Investigative Reporter and fair andus balanced or trail of what happened. He would not do it and he would not make his files available to me. Go back to the date of the event. Was intorch 13, 2006, going the morning of march 14. Where is the house . Duke has two campuses. The great gothic spread that everybody associates with duke. On the east campus, the neoclassical. Many of the neoclassical buildings which was originally trinity college. Its about 1. 5 miles away. And there is a bus tht goes between the campuses on a beautiful, treelined road. That is in this neighborhood called trinity park. Again, this gets to the problem of the fact that the drinking age is 21 in this country. Everybody knows any universities and colleges, everybody under 21 is drinking. And they are doing this on a regular basis. The president before brodhead decided all freshmen should be put on this east campus of the neoclassical campus with the idea that perhaps drinking would be reduced. Then she made rulings about who could drink and who could not drink on the west campus. This had the fact of pushing drinking in the homes of the neighborhood which is in uppermiddleclass neighborhood. The boys lots of people, fraternity guys, in houses and they rented and had big parties. It became a huge problem in this neighborhood. The neighbors were complaining repeatedly for years about public urination and loud noise of all public drunkenness. That became part of the perfect storm that occurred here in this neighborhood. Because the neighbors were complaining to the Durham Police had to take notice. Beefedupart of the campaign to cut down on the drinking. The three boys names. We saw david evans who lives in this town. Who are the other 2 . Reade seligmann, who grew up in new york city. He went to a private school. Collin finnerty whose father was believe it or not a Senior Executive at bear stearns right before it collapsed which was the subject of my second book house of cards. Hes a big executive and they live on long island. Lets look a footage of Reade Seligmann. In 2007 when were they found innocent april 2007. [video clip] came in and said, she picked you. And i mean my dad fell to the floor. And i just sat on the ground. And i said my life is over. What do you see . Very moving testimony that was given during mike nifongs state bar hearing where he was eventually disbarred from. And he thought he was fired as well as the durham District Attorney. Very moving obviously. Very emotional. Reade seligmann was the only one of the three indicted boys that reached out to me. I mean, i reached out to them and most of them said no. They would not speak to me. Reade seligmann wanted to speak. We had email correspondence which i include in the book. And the lawyers thought the better of having me speak to him and that never happened. He had you have to give him he had a airtight alibi about where he was in various points of the evening including calling a cab and having his picture taken at an atm and taking money out and going to a restaurant and getting food. 12 30 in the evening and going back to his dorm. He had an affidavit from the cab driver who basically testified that Reade Seligmann was in his car during the time this supposedly incident occurred. Now, you know, i asked mike nifong about that. What do you think about the seligman alibi . He made his points where he thought it could very well be manufactured alibi. He had his doubts. He points to the fact that when Reade Seligmann asked for the cab to come pick him up at the house, he had the cab go to a house around the corner which mike nifong sees as strange behavior. Why would you do that . Obviously, he wanted to get away. From that house. I have a suspicion and mike nifong has a suspicion and crystal magnum has a suspicion that something torrid did happen in the bathroom. It may not have happened with reade or Collin Finnerty or david evans. There are questions about evans that are stronger than the other 2. One does get the sense that something happened. Lets see some of david evans. On cbs. [video clip] do you think if it does go to trial that if you are convicted, you could face a lot of time in prison . Do you ever think about that . Would you . Sure. 30 years, i could go to jail for something based on a lie. What role he did he play . He was one of the cocaptains. There are 4. Three of them lived in this house on buchanan. 610 north buchanan. He was one of the people who arranged for the party. He arranged for the strippers at the party. He handled the money paid to them. I guess they thought it will be a good idea to join all day and have the strippers come. Were they in season . And they were in the middle of the season. It was spring break. They had been practicing. That had two games that week. Everybody else was off the campus. It was a 15 year tradition of having the party during spring break. Again, why they thought it was a good idea, i do not know. They had submitted and no one questioned it. Usually what they did is go to strip clubs. But they thought it would be better to have the strippers come to the house rather than go to a strip club. Why they thought it was a good idea, i do not know. One of the interesting, crystal magnum, an unanswered question in my mind, she said it was a struggle. She struggled for her life in the bathroom. She was wearing fake fingernails. She said during the struggle, the fingernails popped off. Those fingernails were later found. On one of the fingernails was david evans dna with 98 certainty. Which seems pretty high to me. But, i guess, sometimes dna experts said two percent probability means not related at all. His attorneys said it got there through transference and where roy cooper, the attorney general said it got there through transference. Saying he picked up the fingernails and put them in the trash which could have happened. Except matt picked them up and put them in the trash, not david evans. Matt, another of the cocaptains, who lived in the house, said he did that. And the police wondered why if he picks them up and put them into the trash, why david evan dna was on the fingernail . With 98 certainty. It sounds like you think david evans is guilty . I cannot say that because we will never know what happened. As Donald Rumsfeld said, it could be one of the unknown unknowns. There was never a trial. I am not going to be the one to say he is guilty. There are questions i would like answers to that we are never going to get answers to because roy cooper is not open up his files and david evans is not talking to me. Where are the three young men today . David evans work for a private equity firm in new york. Collin finnerty works as a broker at deutsche bank. I n new york. Reade seligmann went to law school at emory and works as a clerk for a federal judge in new jersey. Camden. Can you conclude anything about the residual for the three boys based on what happened . I mean, it sounds like they have been successful. And they have gone on with their lives. Obviously, they feel terribly wronged. You see Reade Seligmanns emotion. And you saw david evans emotion. That was six months before roy cooper declared them innocent. They have been able to go on with their lives. Interestingly, when i first evans, davidid evans, he was at wharton business school. I heard back from wharton saying i wish you would not contacted him at wharton because i do not think his classmates realize he is the david evans from the duke lacrosse case. They have gone on with their lives as they should. Unless they got away with something. Which we will never know. I also tell the story in this book of brian mcfadden, the guy who wrote in the email. His life has been not ruined but almost ruined by the email he sent that night that he thought was a joke. He thought he was sending it to his fellow players. He had to change his name. I wrote an excerpt about how his life has been changed forever because of what he did in the Early Morning hours of march 14. It seems like if i were the president of duke or any of these people, i would not talk to you. Why would i want you to rehash all of this and remind everybody about what happened . Nobody wants me to write about them. I assure you Goldman Sachs didnt want me to write about them either. But i am going to do it. I am thorough and i try to do a fair and balanced job. If in fact you are innocent and did not do anything, i would think youd want to talk to me. First choice is i hope he doesnt write the book. Second choice is you hope i get hit by a bus. Third choice, if youre going to do it, i want to make sure he understands i did not do anything remotely like i was accused of doing. If i were a roy cooper, i will want to make sure nothing related to what crystal magnum said happened did not happen. If i were brodhead, a duke alum is writing this book and i would think that we would want that point of view to get across. Interestingly, bob siegel, who was president of the board of trustees during the time, former undersecretary of the treasury, working for hank paulson, duke told him not to talk to me, but he did it anyway. I have a lot to respect for help for doing that. He told me what he thought was going on and how this affected him. And the board of trustees from their perspective. What did he say . He basically said it was like a fog of war. I start with a quote from morris. Mcanamara has come out with this donaldble film about rumsfeld. He has investigated very thoroughly and thinks there are a lot of unanswered questions. The quote i use is basically the truth is out there and in principle we can find it. That was my driving force. The truth is out there. And in principal, we can find it. I did the best i could. I do not know if what ever get to the bottom of this unless and until some people who really know what happened or not completely discredited, i do not think they are discredited, but everybody thinks crystal magnum is discredited. Now a convicted murderer in jail for murdering her boyfriend. Anything mike nifong and they think mike nifong is the antichrist. Where is he now . He lives in durham and lives on a pension. He had to file for personal bankruptcy. He has health problems. He had cancer. And he got over that. He had a heart attack. He lives a very quiet, solitary life. He did spend the time to talk to me and get a chance to tell his story that has never been told. You mentioned crystal magnum. Several times. Lets take a look at her. This is after she was found guilty of murdering her husband . Boyfriend. Ok, lets watch. [video clip] crystal gail magnum. We, the 12 members of the jury find her to be guilty of seconddegree murder. By the foreperson. Is this your verdict . If so, say you all . Yay. Theadies and gentlemen of record the reflect this is your vote . Yes. Stand . D you please i believe she is in a prison in North Carolina. I do not know which one. Go back to march 13 of 2006, what role did she play in that evening . And how did it work . She was one of the two exotic dancers that the boys hired to dance for 400 each for 2 hours. I cannot imagine what they were going to do in the two hours. The dance ended such as it was. It ended after five minutes. You know, at that point, there were racial epithets thrown. There was the suggestion that perhaps a broom be used on the women. And that they were hoping the women would get together and perform on each other for the guys. Basically, it quickly got out of control. Many of them were pretty drunk. The two women left and went to the other dancers car. The guys went back out and in,d them to come back apologized and asked them to come back in and finish the dance. Some people said they reluctantly went back in and others said they decided that was more money to be made so they went inside. Next thing you know, crystal found herself in the bathroom she claims with these guys who she said sexually assaulted and kidnapped her. Her there at her will. Here is kim roberts, the other woman. Did they know each other . They had never met each other. They both got 400 a piece . Yes. So it was an 800 yes. How many boys were there . 45. All but 2 were lacrosse players. One of them was black. She said her attackers were white so the one black player was never he never had to give his dna was never part of the whole potential being indicted situation. You also say in the book that the boys wanted white dancers . Yes. Why didnt they get what they wanted . I guess they didnt have white women to supply. They were given the option of black women and they said ok. Lets watch kim roberts. [video clip] she said three guys grabbed her. They separated us and masturbated on us. Matt took me to the bathroom. Were you holding on to each other . Is that true . No. Did she give you any reason to believe she had been assaulted . No. Whatsoever . No. Did she any point say that she was hurt . No, she obviously want wasnt hurt. She was fine. The whole body language from ms. Roberts she first told the police that it was a crock. She changed her story as well. Basically said i do not know what happened. I was not with her. It was quite positive it could have happened. Of course, the defense says she changed her story because she entered into conspiracy with nifong because there was outstanding warrant for her arrest because of parole violation for something she had done and to reduce the cost and such related to satisfying that warrant, she changed her testimony. Where is she today . I have no idea. You suggest that without the record from the nifongs file you would have not had a lot of the material. There was mike nifongs state bar hearing was in the spring of 2007. It went beyond the declaration from roy cooper. Then, in addition to that, 2 of the players, the nonindicted players filed major lawsuits against the duke at a lot of discovery and depositions and a lot of second documentation came out as well. What was not made available was roy coopers investigation where he declared them innocent. A 20 page report. It skimmed the surface of what had happened. He certainly would not let me or anybody else use the file. What are your suspicious about cooper . He is the attorney general for the state. I think is running for governor. He is running for governor in 2016. I would think that if you declare these kids innocent that he should make these files open. I do not know what is in there. But the fact that he wont let makesdy like me see them me suspicious. How was it from a legal standpoint that he defined them not guilty . He found them innocent. Not in thecally legal lexicon. You get the trial as somebody is given a guilty or not guilty. Innocence does not exist in our justice system. He took away out of that. Mike nifong told me on the morning he declared them innocent, he was told by his coopers 2 investigators he was going to say they were not guilty. Not this innocence. That was a complete shock to mike nifong as well as the other attorneys who it shocked everybody. Using the word innocent is not usually used. In a legal context. Let us go back. Why would duke settle with these boys for 20 million a piece . Total. Pay 100 million that is one of the big mysteries. That would have been something i would have loved to get from Dick Brodhead. I talked to trustee members. When i asked about chairman of the board . He would not comment on why they settled. Other members would in and off the record. Basically, the reason he gave they gave was that some duke administrators early on who were not lawyers gave the kids bad legal advice which was do not tell your parents, do not go lawyers, cooperate with the police, and this will go away. That gave duke they thought they had legal exposure because of that. There was this desire to make this go away, to protect the duke brand. To make sure what it was decided that if these kids were innocent, what duke wanted was not to litigate with them about what happened. That course of action is to give them 20 million. Signing nondisclosure agreements which explained why they are not talking to me and have not talked to anybody. It is not exactly clear why duke felt the need to pay these kids. People get wrongly convicted all the time. There are places like the innocent project that defend those kinds of people and try to reverse the judgment that was made. The people wrongly convicted spend 18 years in prison and get a 20,000 payment a year as a result. These kids spent other than their arraignment, an hour or two, no time in jail. And got 20 million. Go back to your own experience at duke. What did you major in . History major. What did you do after graduation . I was editor of tobacco road, which was considered an alternative, quarterly magazine. Left of center. Hardly what somebody would call flaming liberal. After that, i was a reporter in upstate new york. And i went to Columbia Journalism School for a year. Then went back to raleigh. The raleigh times and covered Public Education for two years there. I got an Investigative Journalism award. I went to Columbia Business School and worked on wall street for 17 years. Where did you work on wall street . Lazard freres which was the subject of my first book. And Merrill Lynch and finally, the firm that became jpmorgan chase. Any idea how much money the boys families spent on legal fees . They spend upwards of 3 million a piece on the defense. Apiece . Total. They could have spent more at this point. It could have been more at the time. Just a figure that has been thrown out. What kind of financial shape were the parents in . Collin finnertys father was a banker at bear stearns. He then worked at various they had the resources to do this. Reade seligmann was left well off and the bail for each of these kids was 400,000. Reade seligmann had to borrow the money from a friend. He had to appeal to a judge because the friend wanted it back. David evans mother is a big lobbyist. His father works at a law firm. They clearly had the resources. By the way, their defense team did an extraordinary job defending these kids. Whether these kids got away with something or not, we would never know. They exploited every mistake that mike nifong. They got the state bar to attack mike nifong and file a complaint against him that forced him to recuse himself and turn it over to roy cooper. Innocent. Eclared them david evans mother was a lobbyist for cbs for a long time . That is correct. Is there a bigger lesson to learn . Goes beyond duke to other colleges . The legal aspect of this . Well, to some extent, and shows how the legal system can be corrupted. From both sides. It can be corrected by a prosecutor who is too aggressive in making statements, even though he believes in his mind that he is bringing it to trial. Clearly, the justices here. There was no trial. How many times can you think that somebody has been indicted and there is no trial . You see whether they are innocent or not . How long was there between the indictment and the time that were found innocent . Between april 2006 and march 2007. He did his investigation. This is unprecedented. I happen to know the District Attorney in manhattan. I think that had it not been for this case which proceeded that case, he dropped that dkks case. He was accused of raping a woman at a hotel room in new york it was a he said she said. They pulled him off an airplane when he was going to france. He dropped the charges. I think a large part was because what of happened here. This is had ramifications, District Attorneys all over the country and ramifications among athletic departments. The juxtaposition of trying to be an elite Academic Institution and athletic institution. Duke tries it and stanford tries it. Anybody who went to college or who want their kids to go to college, this is a cautionary tale about how something as simple as i think well have a party on a monday afternoon, because we feel sorry for ourselves because we are the only people on campus. And invite strippers. Conflagration. Y heres the exiduke lacrosse coach, Mike Pressler. He was on espns first take. Talkingune 2007, about this case. Lets watch. [video clip] Mike Pressler tells his story in a book. Mike joins us now. Before we get into the book, the title, where did it come from . A very famous phrase by the Athletic Director at duke when you try to tell me the season have to be canceled. I implored him he cannot cancel the season. If it was not about the truth, what was it about . Many layers. It was about peoples agendas, faculty especially. A lot of prejudgment by so many people. Not only Duke University but the entire country. Where is Mike Pressler today . He is the head lacrosse coach at bryant university. In rhode island. How did he leave, under what circumstances . The Athletic Director, after mcfaddens email was part of a search warrant and was unsealed. As soon as it was unsealed and became public, that was when Mike Pressler was fired and the season was canceled. They were willing to suspend let this play out until indictments came or not. Once the mcfadden email came out, he was fired. And the season was cancelled. You open the book about coach k. I saw that he allegedly got 10 million. To be the coach of that team. What was that story about . I was able to figure he got 9 million. I think it was usza today that had this. Dick brodhead which had been the dean of yale college and highly respected was recruited by bob steele. Duke is a very ambitious school and wanted to be among the elite Academic Institutions in the country. Top three or four or five. They thought brodhead will be the latest in a line of great leaders at duke who made the school puts the school among the top elite in the country. He was supposed to start july 1. Before he started, he was in his office unpacking his bags. Both physically and mentally. In came joe alleva with the stunning news that coach k had been offered 40 million 5year contract to coach the los angeles lakers. Even before brodhead started at the duke, coach k with threatening to leave. To go to the lakers. With a contract there was no way that duke could match. His first real test even before he started his job was to figure out a way to get coach k to stay and he did. Either coach k deciding he will rather be a College Basketball coach than a professional coach. Then he won another title in 2010. Title, andhis 4th he has become the winningest coach in division i. It was very clear example of where the power at the duke lies and that is with coach k. Is by far thek most powerful guy at Duke University. He gets paid more than anybody else. He goes on national tv whenever he wants full stop on whenever he wants. People recognize that. He was in for a very different lesson. That is why he got schooled again. Its at the end of your book, you have a chapter called denouement and you mentioned other places and the problems they have had and the scandals they have had. Cornell, vanderbilt, u. S. Naval academy, northwestern. Harvard. Yale. Wesleyan. It is everywhere. What did you learn or pass on to us . What i learned is underage drinking is an epidemic. Binge drinking is an epidemic. There is bad behavior that results from too much drinking on campus and we all know there is way too much drinking on campus. You know, president obama in january put together a task force of his cabinet to address the growing issue of rape on campus. This is outofcontrol situation. I am not sure how to address it. There are people addressing this. I expect it starts with the 21 year old drinking law. That law basically makes no sense. Every College Administrator across this country has to look the other way as a result of the drinking age being 21. It is in your book and i want to bring it back from a dartmouth student. It was written for the dartmouth newspaper in 2012. He is talking about fraternity. He said i was part of a fraternity that asked pledges a little strong, but it is has something. Are fraternities that bad . Anecdotally, we have these stories. It is just one of any of stories. I also tell the story of the pledge at cornell a couple of years ago who died as a result of too much drinking. Duke has had any number of students die from too much drinking. What were you like when you are at duke . The drinking age was 18. I did drink. I did not binge drink. Ok sure, i drink too much sometimes. Ever heard of parties with strippers . Never heard of that. I had friends in fraternities. Coach pressler, did he know about the drinking when he was coaching the boys . According to the reports, it was clear he was aware there was a lot of drinking going on among his players. Coach k forbids drinking among his basketball players. There are different rules. Pressler was more permissive. It was more set in culture that the lacrosse players were the party players. They had women hang around called the lacrossetitutes. The evidence came out was that pressler knew it and couldnt do anything about it. He was not the only one. The administered some knew as well. Higherups he reported to and not do anything. If you were meeting with president brodhead and he said ok, look me in the eye and tell me what i did wrong, what would you say . I think i am not sure frankly that he didnt do anything wrong. He has been criticized for not coming out in support of the kids sooner. Hes in a very difficult position. He is a middleman. Heres a fiduciary for the university. Well before he even knew about it, it was already basically in the legal system. In the police system. The District Attorney was getting ready to open an investigation. What could he do . I think he did what he could do. Should they have paid the boys 20 million a piece . I do not understand that. Where did they get the money . Duke is a wealthy university. They have the insurance. Aig was the insurance. Ironically. Theyeclined to pay, and sued. Aig won. Duke has to pay it. You said the house was torn down. Why and who owned it . A group of these houses inthis trinity park neighborhood were owned by duke alum. Two weeks before this party occurred, in this one house that the players were renting, duke bought these homes from the alum because of all the complaints. The fact that a duke alum was renting them. It was going to be rented to nonstudents, so the issue would go away. Before that the implement to rent to nonstudents, the party occurred. A couple of years ago, they decide to tear it down. Now it is an empty lot. In durham. Mike nifong, who was the District Attorney in durham, was he right or wrong the way he conducted himself . As much in the first week declaring them guilty . I think he will be the first to say he regrets all of the public statements he made. He was the first to tell me why he did that. It was the first night he had a chance to talk about it and people could give him for speaking out as share his point of view. His problem was he was the District Attorney trying to figure out where the suspects thought were and he did not have any suspects. His thoughts by going public and describing what he believed happened based on the Police Investigation and what crystal magnum has said. That he could smoke out somebody who would feel guilty about what they thought may have happened in the bathroom. Unfortunately, a that did not work. Within a weeks time, he gave it up. And then talk to the media again. He was crucified for doing it. Week. Ublicly and that the name of the book is the price of silence the duke lacrosse scandal, the power of the elite, and the corruption of our great universities. And the author and our guest, william cohan. Thank you very much. Thank you, brian. For having me. For free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at qanda. Org. Q a programs are also available at cspan podcasts. [captions ri