Durham, N.C. — Reader's Digest has nominated a cabdriver whose testimony helped clear a Duke lacrosse player for its 2008 Hero of the Year Award.
Moezeldin Elmostafa, 38, of Durham, told investigators that Reade Seligmann was in his taxi during the time that Crystal Magnum, an exotic dancer, claimed she was raped by Seligmann and two of his teammates on March 14, 2006.
To give out its award, Reader's Digest lets users vote among the "everyday heroes" nominated on its Web site. The magazine says it picked these people, because they "risk their own lives to help people in trouble ... without expectation of accolades or even a thank-you."
After Elmostafa – an immigrant from Sudan – talked to investigators, a routine background check turned up a warrant against him for aiding and abetting misdemeanor larceny in a 2003 shoplifting case.
Elmostafa maintained his innocence and was acquitted at a trial in August 2006. He said he gave a ride to a woman without knowing she had stolen purses from a Durham department store and helped locate her when store security told him about the theft.
The woman later pleaded guilty to larceny.
Elmostafa, meanwhile, continued to provide exonerating testimony about Seligmann, and in April 2007, state Attorney General Roy Cooper declared all three indicted Duke lacrosse players innocent.
Elmostafa told Reader's Digest that he has passed his citizenship test and is waiting to take his oath as an American citizen.



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He was part of the evidence they couldn't control, the story changed over and over again trying to make known evidence explainable and still hold onto the railroad job they were doing, and I'm speaking of the investigators from the DPD.
It's not easy to make your living in a town where the police are trying to intimidate you. Especially if you're from another country and trying to establish residency and such.
I still consider him a hero, he spoke out early and didn't give in to the pressure put on him for many months before the media and others began to take note that the puzzle pieces were not fitting together correctly.
So many people were intimidated during this hoax, he was the one who came forward and spoke the truth and exposed himself to the wrath of the powers that be in Durham.
December 25, 2007 7:57 p.m.
December 25, 2007 8:22 a.m.
December 24, 2007 11:21 p.m.
Does that make it more clear on why he was a hero? Witness intimidation is no picnic."
That info doesn't change my opinion. He did the right thing, and that was admirable, but hero is a STRONG word to me. In my book a hero saves someone's life or remarkably changes it. In the long run his eyewitness account had nothing to do with the case being dropped.
December 24, 2007 11:06 p.m.
December 24, 2007 8:58 p.m.