The disbarment for dishonesty and fraud of the prosecutor of three accused Duke athletes may only be the beginning of a series of sanctions and actions taken over the “fiasco” of the students’ prosecution.

The legal troubles of Mike Nifong, the prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse rape case, are far from over.

Days after his disbarment for dishonesty and fraud, Nifong faces possible sanctions for lying in court and a potential criminal investigation.

Attorneys for the three accused athletes say they plan to ask Durham County Superior Court Judge Osmond Smith to issue sanctions against Nifong for lying in court about DNA evidence that later cleared the players.

The attorneys have also called for an independent agency to investigate what went wrong in the case. State Attorney General Roy Cooper has said he would decide whether to pursue a criminal probe after the state bar proceeding concluded.

“There have been normal formal decisions made,” Wade Smith, one of the defense attorneys, said Sunday. “Everybody needs to let this shake out.”

Nifong, 56, was stripped of his law license Saturday by the North Carolina State Bar after a three-member panel found he had intentionally mislead defense attorneys and two judges while pursuing an investigation that resulted in the athletes being falsely accused. The panel said Nifong’s pursuit was a politically motivated “fiasco.”

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