Engineering sophomore Brian McCormack, a linebacker on the Duke football team, voluntarily turned himself into the Durham County Detention Center Tuesday and Wednesday after being charged with two counts of assault and two counts of injury to personal property.
Robert Todd, a part-time sportswriter at The Times-News in Burlington, accused McCormack of assaulting him outside of the Cosmic Cantina restaurant on Ninth Street last Saturday night sometime after midnight.
Todd and his roommate, Dennis Best, were outside of the restaurant when McCormack and a group of his friends approached the restaurant, said Durham County Magistrate Steve Speller in an interview Wednesday. Todd, who had been vomiting due to drinking, and McCormack exchanged words and a skirmish ensued, he said.
"There was an altercation between Mr. McCormack and Todd; everybody agrees on that," said Edward Falcone, McCormack's attorney. "But what precipitated it, and what happened is the question. Obviously, Mr. McCormack's position in this is that the other gentleman is the one who instigated it and was the aggressor. He was the one who started the fight."
Todd decided early this week to press assault charges against McCormack for inflicting serious injury. After the Duke University Police Department served the warrant early Tuesday, McCormack and Falcone went to the Durham County Jail later that afternoon, where McCormack appeared before Speller.
Speller set McCormack's preliminary hearing date for Oct. 30, and McCormack was then released on $1,000 unsecured bond.
Best and Todd both pressed more charges on Wednesday. Best charged McCormack with simple assault, which Speller noted was a lesser assault charge than that which Todd alone had originally filed.
They both charged McCormack with injury to personal property. The two allege that McCormack had done more than a combined total of about $1,900 worth of damage to their personal property.
Late Wednesday afternoon McCormack went to the jail so that the three new warrants could be served on him. He was released shortly thereafter on $300 unsecured bond, and will also face those charges Oct. 30. Todd and Best allege that McCormack hit Best when Best tried to break up the fight between McCormack and Todd.
"One of them claims that he had over $800 dollars worth of property destroyed in probably 10 seconds, and the other boy said he had $1000 in personal property damaged," Falcone said. "I'm getting more and more of an impression that somebody's just trying to make a big deal out of it."
McCormack declined to comment on the incident, directing all questions to Falcone. He will plead not guilty to all the charges, Falcone said.
McCormack's status on the football team has not changed as a result of the incident. Blue Devil coach Fred Goldsmith conducted his own investigation and interviewed several witnesses before coming to that decision.
Goldsmith said the witnesses he spoke to said the incident was simply an altercation. "The court will decide who provoked the altercation, and the circumstances of the altercation," Goldsmith said. "As far as I'm concerned, with the information that I've been given, until that time later, it's a closed issue."
Goldsmith also noted that after conducting his investigation he does not believe McCormack, 19, had been drinking Saturday night, and that if he had been his status on the football team may have been re-evaluated.
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