The former exotic dancer who accused three Duke University lacrosse players of raping her at party in 2006 now admits she fabricated the allegations, years after the high-profile story unraveled. 

“They trusted me that I wouldn’t betray their trust, and I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong,” said Mangum, who is currently serving a prison sentence for the second degree murder of her boyfriend in 2013.

“[I] made up a story that wasn’t true,” Mangum told Let’s Talk With Kat from the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women on Thursday. It was the first time she publicly acknowledged that she lied about the allegations.

She said she fabricated the encounter because she “wanted validation from people and not from God.”

Mangum, now 46, said she hopes the former players she accused — David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann — can forgive her.

“I want them to know that I love them, and they didn’t deserve that, and I hope that they can forgive me,” she said.

Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann were arrested after Mangum accused them of raping her at a party where she was performing as an exotic dancer in March 2006. 

While former Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong said in a March 2006 interview with CBS News that “there’s no doubt a sexual assault took place” and that the assault was “racially motivated,” the three players were ultimately found innocent and the charges were dismissed. 

Nifong, however, was disbarred in June 2007 for lying in court and withholding DNA evidence that would have proven the players’s innocence.

As soon as Mangum leveled the allegation, the national media descended on the Duke campus, providing breathless coverage day after day while mostly refusing to interrogate Mangum’s claims with a skeptical eye. CBS’s 60 Minutes devoted five segments to the case, which also received coverage in The New York Times, Newsweek, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone.

The accusations upended the young men’s lives. Former Duke University president Richard Brodhead suspended them from school and canceled the remainder of the lacrosse season. He also accepted the resignation of then-head men’s lacrosse coach Mike Pressler. 

The three players accused Brodhead of making false statements and conspiring to deprive them of their right to a fair trial. They ultimately settled with the university for an undisclosed amount.

But Mangum never faced consequences for her life-altering lie. Then-state attorney general Roy Cooper chose not to prosecute Mangum for perjury out of concern for her mental health. 

Now, Mangum can no longer be prosecuted for perjury, as the statute of limitations has lapsed.