From His Mind: ‘It’s There in the Morning and It Tucks Me in at Night’
Gets Upset When People Say His Reputation Is Ruined, Told Mom: ‘My
Reputation Is Mine. No One Else Can Ruin It For Me’

NEW YORK, Jan. 7 LAWFUEL — Reade Seligmann, one of the three Duke
lacrosse players charged with sexually assaulting a stripper, says the
ongoing case is never far from his mind. “It’s there in the morning and it
tucks me in at night,” he tells Senior Writer Susannah Meadows in
Newsweek’s January 15 issue (on newsstands Monday, January 8). “Every time you’re happy, you’ll remember why you weren’t happy.” Just before the new year, Seligmann sat with Newsweek for an exclusive four-hour interview, the first time any of the players has spoken in depth about the hellish months since the party in March where the assault allegedly occurred.

After the arrest, Seligmann tells Meadows, he channeled his competitive
streak by cheering his twin 18-year-old brothers’ high-school football
team. Duke allowed him to finish the semester from home, and he made the
athletic- conference honor roll amid the turmoil. Determined not to waste
the year, he volunteered at a soup kitchen and coached football at his old
junior high, which had faith in his innocence from the start. Seligmann
also describes what it’s like to get stares. Sometimes he’ll be on the
treadmill at the gym and his face will come across the row of TV screens in
front of him. He can feel everyone turn his way. Even homeless men at the
soup kitchen recognize him. “You’re a football player, aren’t you?” one guy
said to him. “Good luck, man.” Seligmann says he doesn’t mind being noticed
but gets upset when people say his reputation is ruined. He told his mom,
“You know something, my reputation is mine. No one else can ruin it for
me.” Seligmann also says he hasn’t decided if he’ll go back to Duke. He’s
certainly nostalgic for the blissfully mundane concerns of his old life
there: “I miss more than anything staying up and worrying about a miserable midterm.”

The case, says Seligmann, sometimes so dominates household
conversations that his brother Cameron begs his family to talk about
something else. Yet one day in school, he raised his hand and asked his
teacher, “I need to know why bad things happen to good people.” The three
accused players talk regularly, and their mothers are in close touch, too.
Everyone in the Seligmann family has tried not to become bitter, and Reade
promised his dad he wouldn’t let the case ruin his life. “I always believed
that the truth will trump everything,” he says. “I have to believe that.”
He’d already planned to go to law school, but now, he says, it’s gotten
personal: he wants to become a criminal defense lawyer.

Seligmann still gets emotional thinking about what his parents have
gone through, reports Meadows. Remembering the first phone call he made to
his mother, Kathy, after learning that the accuser had picked him from a
lineup, he says, “It was like the life was sucked out of her.” Before he
hung up, he made her promise not to watch his arrest on TV. The next day,
at home, she went to look for her 14-year-old, Ben. She found him in his
room, sobbing in front of the TV. “Why are they doing this to him, Mom?” he
asked. Kathy looked over and Reade was on the screen, handcuffed and being
led into jail.

Monday 8 January 2007 LAWFUEL – Action by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to crack down on the systematic misbehaviour of company officers who deliberately avoid their responsibilities to creditors has resulted in the removal of 40 directors.

ASIC Chairman, Mr Jeffrey Lucy, said today that ASIC was increasing its focus on misconduct by officers of assetless companies that have gone into liquidation and left behind unpaid creditors. In the last year, ASIC has banned 40 directors for a total of 144 years who have engaged in misconduct following company failures and repeat phoenix activity. Phoenix activity is typically associated with directors who transfer the assets of an indebted company into a new company of which they are also directors. The director then places the initial company into administration or liquidation with no assets to pay creditors, meanwhile continuing the business using the new company structure.

The enforcement program is supported by funding from the Assetless Administration Fund. Mr Lucy said the Fund enabled liquidators to carry out proper investigations and develop detailed reports which help ASIC decide whether to take enforcement action. In 2006, ASIC approved 158 applications from liquidators with a funding commitment of $1,363,916. This has resulted in the banning of 15 directors for a total of 58 years. Another 52 potential banning matters are currently being prepared by ASIC. ‘The Assetless Administration Fund addresses an important regulatory gap. More rigorous investigations and reports to ASIC have helped to improve returns for creditors, reduce the scope for phoenix activity and improve corporate conduct generally’, Mr Lucy said.

‘The progress and initial success of this scheme is encouraging, and sends a clear message that ASIC will not tolerate dishonest business practices and abuse of the corporate system to the detriment of the community.’ Of the 40 bannings last year, 15 were assisted by information provided by liquidators who had received funding under the Assetless Administration Fund. ASIC banned a further 25 people as part of increased and ongoing efforts to crack down on phoenix activity. ASIC has also commenced a surveillance initiative to ensure that company officers banned from managing corporations comply with their disqualification. ASIC will consider criminal proceedings against anyone who fails to abide by their disqualification.

Background In October 2005, ASIC was allocated $23 million over four years by the Federal Government to establish the Assetless Administration Fund. The Fund finances preliminary investigations and reports by liquidators into the failure of companies with few or no assets, where it appears to ASIC that enforcement action may result from the investigation and report. The Fund helps close the regulatory gap that arises when a failed company is not properly investigated. This can happen because liquidators are not obliged to incur any expense, other than an expense necessary to comply with their minimum statutory duties, unless the company in liquidation has sufficient available property to fund it. As a result, when a company is left with few or no assets, the liquidator often performs only a perfunctory investigation.

This may allow misconduct in the lead up to a formal insolvency to go undiscovered or without sanction. Further information with respect to the Assetless Administration Fund is available on the Insolvency & Liquidators homepage of ASIC’s website, www.asic.gov.au. Complaints relating to suspected phoenix activity may be lodged via our website at www.asic.gov.au or by writing to any of our capital city offices across Australia: Manager National Assessment & Action ASIC GPO Box 9827 IN YOUR CAPITAL CITY For further information contact: Danielle Huck ASIC Media Unit Telephone: 03 9280 3407 Mobile: 0417 540 769