Duke lacrosse accuser loses another lawyer

Crystal Mangum, 34, is charged in the April 2011 death of Reginald Daye, 46, who was stabbed with a kitchen knife during an argument at his Durham apartment, police said. They had been dating for about a month at the time of his death.

A judge on Friday allowed defense attorney Scott Holmes to withdraw from the case because of a conflict of interest through his new position as director of the Civil Litigation Clinic at the North Carolina Central University School of Law. A colleague represents another party in the case, he said.

Holmes had represented Mangum since March. Her first attorney dropped out last year, saying her supporters had suggested she was unhappy with his defense. She also has represented herself for part of the case.

Mangum claimed in March 2006 that three players on the Duke lacrosse team trapped her inside a bathroom at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., where she was performing as a stripper at a team party, and raped and sexually assaulted her.

Her story about the incident was so inconsistent that Attorney General Roy Cooper later declared the players innocent, saying there was no credible evidence against them.

In February 2010, police arrested Mangum after an altercation between her and a different boyfriend. In that incident, she was accused of assaulting the man in front of her children and setting some of his clothes on fire.

She was later convicted of child abuse, injury to personal property and resisting a public officer in the case, but prosecutors dismissed an arson charge after a jury couldn't reach a verdict.