It started as an open
dialogue between mothers. Mary Ellen Finnerty, whose son Collin was indicted in
the Duke lacrosse incident, broke the silence of the three families involved
and agreed to speak to Chapel Hill writer Sharon Swanson in an exclusive
interview for Raleigh
Metro Magazine.
The result is a
profound and frank inside view of how a family has suffered — and transcended —
the anger, shock and dismay created by the apparently false charges against
their son.
—Bernie Reeves
I live in Chapel Hill, NC, the next door neighbor to Durham and Duke University. I could throw a rock into this adjoining county from my house. These days, I often want to, for reasons I will attempt to explain.
This spring, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong made national news when he very publicly charged three Duke University lacrosse players — Collin Finnerty from New York, Reade Seligmann from New Jersey, and David Evans of Maryland — with the rape of a black exotic dancer at a team party. Just before the primaries, Nifong vowed to be tough on these rich white boys — in an effort, some say, to win the black vote. Nifong has continued to affirm his position despite a 60 Minutes broadcast that revealed that two of the defendants were never questioned by authorities, and a witness — the second dancer — is saying the rape never happened. Nifong has also acknowledged that he has never questioned the accuser — apparently because he doesn’t want to risk being called to testify himself. The district attorney’s office has yet to set a trial date for the young men, now referred to as the Duke Three. Nine months after the alleged assault took place, the DA’s office is still “gathering evidence.”
It would be easy to dismiss Nifong’s actions as yahoo politics at their worst. I suspect that is the way many outside the Tar Heel state would characterize it. Yet, there was an undercurrent to these charges that many of us, who have our roots in the area, were afraid to acknowledge, even to ourselves. As soon as this case hit the media, I imagine many white liberals reflexively visualized the sons of white masters slipping into the slave quarters at night. At the time, I, too, agreed that we should be hard on these boys from privileged white families. Like most people in this part of the country, I couldn’t scratch the trunk of the family tree without uncovering a racist, even a KKK member or two. A branch of my husband’s family once owned slaves in Virginia. My own family is only one generation removed from working the tobacco fields of this state, though I have a male cousin who graduated from Duke. I was relieved that these charges were aimed at what I assumed to be elite Yankee families instead of one of our own native sons. (It is still disputed whether Maryland qualifies as a Southern state.)
I am a freelance community columnist for Raleigh’s The News & Observer. I wrote about the Duke Three in terms of my concern regarding teenaged lacrosse players who were attending a summer camp near my 12-year-old daughter. After the column ran, I received an e-mail from Mary Ellen Finnerty, the mother of defendant Collin Finnerty. “I’d like you to meet my son,” she said. She invited me to talk, “mother to mother,” and to introduce me to the son that she believes is incapable of committing such a crime. In October, I visited the Long Island home of Kevin and Mary Ellen Finnerty, two days before a 60 Minutes broadcast aired on the case by the now deceased Ed Bradley.
Although I felt I was an unlikely confidant in the 20-ring media circus that surrounds these families, it was Mary Ellen’s voice over the phone — her fear and pain — that left me no other decision but to go see her. The one caveat: We were prohibited, by a judge’s gag order, from discussing details of the charges against Collin and the other lacrosse players.
A Good Kid
A statue of the Madonna and child stands near the landscaped entrance to the Finnerty home. The house itself is large and warmly decorated in muted shades of browns, greens and reds. No doubt it serves as a welcome retreat these days for the Finnertys’ five children. Collin is the middle child; his two older brothers live and work in New York City and his younger sisters are still at home. Mary Ellen is a tall woman who admits that her hair “gets a little blonder the older I get.” We sat at her kitchen table over lunch. Her worn jeans were a little loose on her, not, I suspect, because she’s the kind of woman who diets, but because she’s lost interest in food.
“What gets me so angry,” Mary Ellen told me, “is that I held this child in my arms; I protected him. He was a good kid in high school. He was never a curfew breaker — and I was the strictest mother in America, according to all of the kids. The boys always worked hard and their spending money they earned. It was never handed to them, despite all these articles that talk about spoiled rich kids.” Mary Ellen explained that her grandparents were Irish immigrants who lived in the Bronx; her grandfather was a New York City firefighter. “Everybody had a brogue in my mother’s family and drank tea out of the saucer, not out of the cup. When I met my husband, he was working seven days a week and has supported himself basically since he was 15. He paid off college loans for the first 10 years of our married life.”
I asked Mary Ellen about Collin. He was working she told me, full time at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The phone rang and Mary Ellen answered, apologizing to me for the interruption.
“Where are you now?” she said cupping the receiver close. It was Emily, her 12-year-old daughter. “Are you going for ice cream? Is her dad going to bring you home or do you want me to come and get you?”
“I am a very private person,” the mother of Collin Finnerty said at one point. Yet, before I arrived, she’d already dealt with a local television news cameraman who had come to her door asking for a comment about 60 Minutes. She’d also ripped a story about her son out of the paper so that he wouldn’t see the word “rapist” in the headlines. “A lot of joy has been taken out of our lives,” she said. We’ve been robbed. We were a very happy family, and a monster stepped in. [She was referring to Durham DA Mike Nifong.] It’s hard to experience joy right now. I just sort of get through the day.”
Jack, the smallest and youngest of the Finnerty family’s dogs, approached me to have his head rubbed. As I reached down to oblige, I asked Mary Ellen about Jack’s collar, which read: “Life is Good.”
For a moment, Mary Ellen looked away. “I used to think that,” she said.
The Georgetown Incident
I admired an unusual pair of carved wooden candleholders on the kitchen table. They were a gift from a grammar school friend of her husband’s, a priest who works in Tanzania. The family has long supported that mission. This same priest performed the ceremony when the couple renewed their wedding vows for their 25th wedding anniversary three years earlier. Yet, when this family friend came to support the Finnerty family in a DC courtroom when Collin stood trial for what many have described as a “gay-bashing,” he was dubbed the “Rent-A-Collar.” For the Finnerty family, this represents just one example of how the details of their lives have been manipulated to make them appear to be different than what they are, to make their family appear different than who they are.
This Georgetown incident has stirred up even more questions about the character of Collin Finnerty. His mother knows that the blogs about her son are filled with hate rhetoric; bloggers describe him as racist, homophobic and violent. I asked Mary Ellen about the circumstances that led to her son’s conviction of simple assault. Witnesses testified that Collin never threw a punch; it was Collin’s friend that struck the accuser — after he had knocked Collin to the ground from behind. Collin was convicted of “menacing behavior,” and spent six months on probation. The accuser, according to Mary Ellen, was not gay, and none of the boys ever thought he was. Neither the arresting officer, the DA nor the judge in that case believed that the actions of the young men constituted a hate crime.
Collin was, however, only 19 years old, and drinking at a bar. Mary Ellen told me that as a family they do not condone underage drinking. “I hate alcohol because I don’t like to see what it does,” she said. And as for the lacrosse party: “Was I thrilled that they had a stripper [at a lacrosse party]? I was disgusted that they would have a stripper.” The phone rang, and she checked to make sure it wasn’t one of the children before placing the phone back down on the counter. “I’ve heard since that there were as many as 22 incidents of strippers at other Duke parties; this wasn’t the only time it’s happened.”
North Carolina Justice
Kevin Finnerty, Collin’s father, is a tall, handsome man, who retains the physique of the college scholarship swimmer he once was. He is seemingly relaxed and articulate — and he is on a mission to vindicate his son and by extension, his family.
“I’d like to believe that something good will come out of this,” Kevin said. “I think that the Durham DA effectively answers to nobody, and I don’t know anywhere else in America where people don’t answer to anyone.”
It’s true that North Carolina district attorneys only answer to their constituents every four years. However, DAs are also attorneys, and the North Carolina Bar investigates all complaints lodged with them. James Coleman, a Duke law professor, has recommended publicly that Nifong should appoint a special prosecutor due to his alleged misconduct in the handling of this case. (Citing confidentiality issues, the North Carolina Bar’s general counsel, Katherine Jeans, would not reveal if a complaint has been filed in their office.)
Kevin went on. “Apparently in the state of North Carolina, neither the governor nor the attorney general can get involved in an active case,” he continued. “In the state of New York, the governor can get involved in any case at any time. Then there is the North Carolina grand jury system, where no record is made of cases presented — there is no stenographer, no one taking notes, no tape recorder, there is simply no record of what is said to a North Carolina grand jury. We have friends who are lawyers in New York and they asked: ‘When are you going to get the transcripts of what was given to the grand jury in Durham?’ And there are none.”
In the state of North Carolina, you must show probable cause for an indictment. The standards are different for an arrest; an investigating officer provides his word to a grand jury. In an arrest, there is no requirement to prove that there has actually been a crime.
“They didn’t want any evidence from any of the defense lawyers. They didn’t want it, didn’t ask for it, and didn’t want to take it when it was offered,” said Kevin. The DA is required by law to turn over any evidence he has to the grand jury. This technicality in North Carolina law allowed the Durham DA to charge the three young men without seeing any exonerating information they could have provided. “That’s why you’ve read so much about defense lawyers wanting to offer cab receipts, telephone receipts, eyewitness testimony, [evidence as to] who they were with, what they were doing — the DA did not want to take these because, if he took it, he would have to, by law, give it to the grand jury.”
Finally, in North Carolina, the DA does not present evidence to the grand jury; this is the task of investigators. It was this fact that moved Kevin to shake his head. “The prosecutor, the DA, has a responsibility to get at the truth, and the DA has a responsibility to search for the evidence, and look at the evidence that reveals itself. That was certainly not done here. To this day, nobody has asked Collin where he was, who he was with, what kind of exonerating evidence he has … no one has questioned Collin. No one has asked Wade Smith [Collin’s Raleigh attorney]. No one has asked us. No one has asked Reade Seligmann [another defendant].”
“How do you get indicted, and you’re never questioned?” Mary Ellen asked. “I’m frightened I live in a country that allows that to happen.”
Years Off Our Lives
I asked Kevin what good they believed could come out of this. “Obviously this is a major chapter in Collin’s life, in his brothers and sisters’ lives. I think it has taken a close family and made it much closer. So that’s a good thing. It probably has taken more years off our lives in the process, but that is the tradeoff.”
Jack brought a toy and dropped it at my feet to toss for about the 10th time. We all laughed at his persistence. “He’s not so cute anymore, is he?” Mary Ellen said.
The Finnertys told me they have received hundreds of letters of support, many from the Durham community. They keep them in a box, hoping to one day have a chance to thank those people. The messages are not just from people who reflect their own background. They have some anecdotal reason to believe that the black community of Durham is more ambivalent about the charges than District Attorney Nifong might hope.
In May, they went to Durham for their second son Kyle’s graduation from Duke. The visit had been planned as a celebration for the whole family, but they wound up leaving Collin and the younger children at home. After the festivities, the Finnertys caught a yellow cab back to the airport. “We were guarded, talking about graduation, the weekend and Kyle — nothing else,” Kevin said. “The black cab driver drove us to the airport and got out to help with our stuff. Out of left field, the driver gives me a hug. And then he’s crying, he’s teary, he’s shaking my hand with two of his hands. He’s holding on to me. ‘You don’t know me,’ he said, ‘and I don’t know you, but I am a parent, too. I want you to know that I am praying for you and your son.’”
Perfect Storm Of Events
Kevin made an effort to be philosophical about his son’s accuser, although there was clearly anger lurking beneath the surface of his words. “My best guess is that this woman has had a hard life.” We talked about the fact that the accuser’s former husband has said that she told him she had been previously gang raped as a teenager. I am a former social worker and I suspect that no matter what happened the night of the Duke party, this woman must have felt threatened by this crowd of carousing young men, and the undeniable sexual and racial tones of the party. Kevin wouldn’t disagree with the fears this woman’s past has bred in her. But he doesn’t believe his son should have to pay for it.
Then his anger came to the surface. “You have a bully cop, who is so corrupt, he will say anything,” referring to investigator Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, who has been under scrutiny for an arrest record that appears to indicate a targeting of Duke students. He is currently on paternity leave from the police department.
“You have Duke, which mishandled the whole situation. You have the media, the white guilt and years of injustices. It is the perfect storm of a lot of things. And yet, Collin is not guilty. Collin is innocent. He works full time, he goes to school at Hofstra [University] two nights a week taking courses; he works out every day in hopes that someday he will get back out on the field.”
Collin first met his girlfriend, Jessica, in middle school. Mary Ellen showed me a photo of the two. Her picture reminded me of my own daughter, with her long straight hair and wholesome looks. I wondered how it was that her presence in Collin’s life has escaped media scrutiny, and just how she has coped with the allegations against her boyfriend. Jessica attends Boston College and planned to come home to watch 60 Minutes with Collin and his family. Jessica’s father served as a character reference for Collin in the Georgetown incident.
“His college years will never be what they should have been,” said his mother. “He has lost so much of his innocence, his youth, his trust, his playful spirit, whatever. He is frightened of so many things.”
I asked Kevin how he would feel about Collin going back to Duke, given a favorable outcome at the trial. Mary Ellen and I had talked about it earlier. She knows that this is what her son wants. Admitting this was the only time she cried throughout the afternoon. “I’d be afraid for his safety,” she said.
“Collin has said that his friends are at Duke,” said Kevin. “If he goes back, they are the only ones who understand this story completely. Collin has said, ‘If I go to another school, I’ll be that kid from Duke. The rapist.’”
Collin Finnerty’s accuser described him as short and plump. Collin is 6 feet 5 inches tall, and lanky rather than bulky. When we met, Collin had just come in from the gym and was headed upstairs for a shower. He is a quiet, shy young man, who looks younger than his 20 years. His mother introduced us with the same pride she would show with the introduction of each of her children, as they arrived home for dinner. He shook my hand, maintaining strong eye contact, though his manner was reserved. He studied my face as we made small talk. It was clear that he’s learned recently that everyone can’t be trusted.
A Mother’s Son
I understand that good people can do awful things. I also know that awful things can happen to good people. And within those poles lie the facts in the Duke lacrosse case. Standing at his mother’s kitchen sink, I saw a vulnerable, almost fragile young man. I saw the son that his mother knows. After talking to Collin for five minutes, I wanted to leave the room — to go somewhere he couldn’t see me — so that I could sob, or scream, or throw something breakable. If these charges turn out to be false, as he and the other defendants claim, it’s not possible to undo the damage that has been done to this seemingly gentle young man.
Collin’s return to Duke may not be an option, no matter the outcome at trial. Duke’s president, Richard Brodhead, made this point clear in the 60 Minutes interview: No matter how the case is adjudicated, these boys have admitted to underage drinking and entertaining a stripper. Brodhead’s attitude seems a little self-righteous, only if you assume that he has no idea that this same kind of behavior has gone on all over his campus, without consequences. In short, Brodhead and others are still making assumptions that they know about the actions of Collin and his friends that night. For now, no one actually knows if Collin Finnerty was even there at the time the alleged assault took place.
Collin came into the room, wearing a dark polo shirt of his father’s. “So you like my shirt, do you?” It seems this is a long-standing Finnerty male joke — they all borrow one another’s shirts. It might have been a joke, but there is a comforting solidity and sincerity to Kevin that allows for others to place their confidence in him. I don’t doubt this extends to his Wall Street business relationships. But for his children, wearing his clothes must feel a little like putting on armor. Later, when the night developed a chill, Mary Ellen, too, would appear in one of her husband’s sweaters.
“People think that I have the toughest time,” Collin said, “but it’s harder for my mom. It’s tough to see her deal with this day after day for something that never happened. I’ll be happy to see her sitting on a beach or some place, not having to think about this. When it’s over, I’ll be happy to see my whole family relieved, but especially for my mom. Right now I can’t contemplate a day without this going on. A perfect day for me would be just hanging out with my brothers. I could zone it out, not think about it for an hour … but at some point it always comes back around.”
Collin’s sister, Molly, made an appearance on her way out to a Sweet Sixteen party with friends. She hugged her dad, then patted Collin on the shoulder as she exited the room, leaving the trail of scent in her wake.
When Mary Ellen left the room to put the finishing touches on dinner, Kevin told me that of his family, he worries most about her. I’d seen a pattern in these confidences. Each family member only talked to me about the case when the others weren’t in the room. It’s as if when they were together, they wanted to keep up the semblance of normality, as if to insulate one another from the case.
Dinner at the Finnerty house was chicken, salad and rice pilaf, served buffet style. They talked about movies and ball games. They teased each other while they waited for their dad to serve his plate. He’s always the last to come to the table, they said. When Kevin took his place at the head of the table, the Finnerty family bowed their heads as Kevin gave thanks for their blessings.
No doubt the Finnertys have been somewhat prepped for dealing with reporters. Any good defense attorney would see to that. Was their house cleaner, more picked up than you might expect from a large family on a regular basis? Probably. Were the Finnertys on their best behavior? Most definitely. Yet, during my social work days, I have sat in interviews with couples who extolled their virtues as parents at great length while their toddler played behind them, unconsciously pretending to toke a joint. It’s tough to hide who you are for eight hours. If any clues as to the hidden natures of this family were there, I did not pick up on them. What I did observe, however, was a close family that sees themselves under siege by an enemy that has chosen to attack them for reasons they don’t fully understand.
As I said my good-byes, the boys were drifting into the den to watch ESPN. Kevin and Mary Ellen walked me to the door. Beyond the lights radiating from the Finnerty house, it was cold and dark. As I walked the rocky, graveled driveway to the car, there wasn’t even a star to break up the unrelenting blackness — nothing to add a spark of warmth to the night.
Of course, I haven’t sat down with Nifong and his family — I understand he is keeping a low profile these days. Nor have I met with the accuser and her family. No doubt I would find that they, too, have compelling stories to tell. They, too, will hereafter measure the events of their lives from a clear spring night in Durham. But there is no denying that people in this area unconsciously assumed Collin Finnerty’s guilt, and now stay silent as that guilt becomes less clear, for fear of being accused of a historic racism. I don’t believe it is a coincidence that the first outside attorney of any standing in this state that has been willing to call Nifong on his inept handling of the Duke lacrosse charges just happens to be a black man. I also don’t believe that it is a coincidence that the Durham DA held a press conference with the Durham police the day after he was pilloried in absentia by 60 Minutes — he declined to be interviewed — to announce that he would be seeking the death penalty in the murder of four young black men a year earlier. On Nov. 7, DA Nifong retained his job with 49 percent of the vote. A majority, 51 percent, was split between two ghost candidates — one a Durham county commissioner who allowed his name on the ballot, but declared early on that he would not serve if elected, and a write-in candidate. Nifong was quoted the next day as saying that his decision to prosecute the lacrosse case had not changed. A state representative has requested a federal investigation. Still, no trial date has been set.