Nifong Ordered to Pay Nearly $9K to State Bar

RALEIGH, N.C. — Former Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong must pay nearly $9,000 in costs associated with the June hearing that led to his disbarment.

Nifong has 90 days to pay to the North Carolina State Bar $8,897.91, which covers the five-day hearing, depositions and transcripts surrounding the Bar's complaint that he violated rules of professional conduct in his nearly yearlong prosecution of three Duke lacrosse players on false rape, sexual assault and kidnapping charges.

In June, a three-member disciplinary commission decided Nifong committed at least two dozen violations of the state's rules of professional conduct, including lying to the court and withholding DNA evidence in the case.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, to whose office Nifong gave the case in January, dismissed kidnapping and sexual assault charges against David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann in April and declared them innocent victims of a "tragic rush to accuse."

Nifong had dropped the rape charges against the three men in December after the accuser, Crystal Mangum, wavered in key details of her story.

In a preliminary hearing last month related to possible criminal contempt of court charges against him, Nifong apologized to the players in an effort for all parties involved to "begin to move forward."

Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith has set a tentative date for Aug. 30-31 to move forward with that preliminary hearing.