She’s back. Crystal Mangum, the notorious Duke lacrosse accuser, appeared in public today for the first time since that whole player-life-ruining brouhaha two years ago. What’s the occasion? Promoting her book, but of course.
 

In the book she writes: “I want to assert, without equivocation, that I was assaulted.” What she can’t say without equivocation is whether she was raped, how many people attacked her or what the assault exactly consisted of.
 

These little holes in the story were enough to acquit the players and led to the disbarring of the district attorney. And now Mangum is opening up the can of worms all over again with her book, The Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story.” The AP reports:

An attorney who defended one of the players in the criminal case quickly denounced Mangum's remarks, saying her allegation hurt the accused players, the state and all women who have been victims of sexual assault.

"If Crystal Mangum truly wants to heal, get on with her life and have others learn from her experiences, she would admit her lies and the damage they did," Joseph Cheshire said in an e-mail. "The fact that she will not do that makes all of her motives and self-possessed desire to explain herself another lie. This is about money and lies. Pure and simple."

Mangum declined to answer specific questions about the details of the case on Thursday, and the publisher of the book said repeatedly "the case is closed" and she accepts the conclusions of state prosecutors.

"At this point, it doesn't really matter," she said Thursday. "What matters is for people to know my account of what happened and for all of us to learn from it."

The case is closed and she accepts the conclusions of the state prosecutors… right. Then tell me again, what’s this book about?