RALEIGH, N.C. — A tearful Mike Nifong said Friday that he will resign as district attorney after admitting that he made improper statements about three Duke University lacrosse players who were once charged with raping a stripper.
"My community has suffered enough," Nifong said from the witness stand at his ethics trial on allegations that he violated rules of professional conduct in his handling of the case.
The players were later declared innocent by state prosecutors.
The North Carolina State Bar said Nifong withheld DNA test results from the players' attorneys, lied to the court and bar investigators, and made misleading and inflammatory comments about the three athletes, who were cleared of charges they raped a stripper at a team party in March 2006.
"It has become increasingly apparent during the course of this week, in some ways that it might not have been before, that my presence as the district attorney in Durham is not furthering the cause of justice," Nifong said.
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Nifong's soft statements were barely audible in the courtroom, where observers struggled to hear Nifong through his tears. He stunned even his own attorneys and staff with the news. They said they had no idea what he had planned.
But the families of since-cleared players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans watched with little emotion, and Evans' attorney rejected Nifong's attempt to take responsibility.
"It was an obvious cynical ploy to save his law license, and his apology to these people is far too little and comes far too late," defense lawyer Joseph Cheshire said.
Nifong started in the Durham County prosecutor's office nearly three decades ago as a volunteer attorney fresh out of law school. If convicted by the disciplinary committee, he could lose his license to practice law in the state.
The inflammatory statements the bar cited included Nifong calling the players a "bunch of hooligans" and proclaiming he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl."
On the stand Friday, Nifong said: "The comment about race was not a comment that should have been made."
