Cooper highlights Duke lacrosse case in ad

RALEIGH — Attorney General Roy Cooper’s first television ad for his re-election bid highlights the Duke University lacrosse case.

A commercial that began running Tuesday in the Triangle shows clips from his news conference last year when he declared three former players innocent of all charges.

The players were falsely accused of raping a woman hired to perform as a stripper at a 2006 lacrosse team party. Cooper said at the time that no DNA supported the woman’s story.

The ad’s narrator goes on to say Cooper helped modernize the state crime lab and added dozens of DNA experts.

Cooper is seeking a third term as attorney general. Republican challenger Bob Crumley has criticized Cooper for opening a new lab in Greensboro that doesn’t have the equipment to perform DNA testing.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)