Former and current stripper convicted of murder Crystal Mangum admitted to lying about being raped by Duke Lacrosse players in an interview on independent media outlet “Let’s Talk With Kat” on Thursday.

“I falsely testified against them saying they raped me when they didn’t and it was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of many others who believed in me,” Mangum said. “(I) invented a story that it wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God. »

Mangum, who is serving prison time for the murder of her boyfriend, falsely accused three Duke players of raping her while she performed at a team party in March 2006. The players whom she accused were arrested, sparking national controversy and conversations about racism. The allegations even forced the team to cancel a game against Georgetown.

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In this August 2010 file photo, Crystal Mangum, who was at the center of the Duke University lacrosse scandal, was accused of stabbing a man on April 3, 2011, in a Durham, Carolina, apartment from the North. (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News Observer/MCT)

The three players, David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, were all found innocent of the crimes. But Mangum was not prosecuted for perjury because of questions about her mental health.

“She may have believed the many different stories she told,” former North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said at the time.

Mangum cannot be prosecuted for perjury at this time because the statute of limitations for perjury charges in North Carolina only lasts about two years.

Former Durham County Prosecutor Mike Nifong, who was the lead prosecutor in the case, said in a March 2006 statement interview with CBS News, “there is no doubt that a sexual assault took place” and that it was “racially motivated.”

CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM: PROFILE OF RAPE ACCUSATOR DUKE

Crystal Mango (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News Observer/MCT)

“The information I have leads me to conclude that a rape did take place,” Nifong said. “The circumstances of the rape indicate a deep racial motivation for some of the things that were committed. It makes a crime that is inherently one of the most offensive and pervasive, even more so.”

Nifong was subsequently disbarred on June 16, 2007 by the North Carolina State Bar for lying in court and withholding DNA evidence, which ultimately absolved the defendants of any responsibility for Mangum’s allegations.

Mangum also claimed that “something” happened that night in a book she published in 2008 called “Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story.”

“I will never say that nothing happened that night,” she wrote.

Mangum was charged with first-degree murder and two counts of theft in March 2011. A year earlier, she was convicted of a misdemeanor after starting a fire that nearly burned down her home with her three children inside. During a videotaped police interrogation, she told officers that she had had a confrontation with her boyfriend at the time, not Daye, and that she had burned her clothes, broken the window -broke his car and threatened to stab him.

According to North Carolina Department of Corrections records, she was born July 18, 1978, to a truck driver. She grew up as the youngest of three children, not far from the house where she said she was attacked in 2006.

In 1993, when she was 14, Mangum claimed she was kidnapped by three men, taken to a house in Creedmoor, North Carolina, 15 miles from Durham, and raped. She said one of the men was her boyfriend at the time and was a physically and emotionally abusive man, seven years her senior.

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In this August 2010 file photo, Crystal Mangum, who was at the center of the Duke University lacrosse scandal, was accused of stabbing a man early Sunday, April 3, 2011, in a Durham apartment , in North Carolina. (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT)

Creedmoor Police Chief Ted Pollard said Mangum filed a report about the incident on Aug. 18, 1996, three years after the rapes allegedly occurred. The case did not result in prosecution, however, because the accuser dropped the charges out of fear for her life, according to her relatives.

Vincent Clark, a friend who co-wrote Mangum’s self-published memoir, said he hopes people don’t rush to judgment — echoing one of the oft-quoted lessons of the the lacrosse affair itself.

Clark said Mangum realizes she has mental health issues.

“I’m sad for her. I hope people realize how hard it is to be her,” Clark said.

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