updated 4:26 p.m. ET May 16, 2006

DURHAM, N.C. - Like the rest of his Duke University lacrosse teammates, David Evans remained silent in the two months after accusations surfaced that a woman who had been hired to strip at a team party was raped there.

On Monday, shortly after becoming the third player charged in the case, the co-captain defiantly proclaimed his and his teammates’ innocence.

“I am innocent. Reade Seligmann is innocent. Collin Finnerty is innocent,” Evans said, defending the two other players charged. “Every member of the Duke lacrosse team is innocent. You have all been told some fantastic lies, and I look forward to watching them unravel in the weeks to come.”

A grand jury indicted Evans, who had just graduated from Duke with a degree in economics, on charges of rape, sexual offense and kidnapping.

Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md., turned himself in and was released after posting $400,000 bond. He was initially scheduled to make a first appearance in court Tuesday, but his attorneys waived the hearing. His next court date is the week of June 19.

Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y., were indicted last month on the same charges, which stemmed from a March 13 team party at the off-campus house where Evans lived. A 27-year-old black student at nearby North Carolina Central University told police she was raped and beaten by three white men after she and another woman were hired as strippers.

District Attorney Mike Nifong said he did not expect any more indictments in the case, saying the three players facing charges were the only ones implicated by the evidence.

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“At the outset of this investigation, I said it was just as important to remove the cloud of suspicion from the members of the Duke University lacrosse team who were not involved in this assault as it was to identify the actual perpetrators,” Nifong said.

Defense attorneys have insisted all the players are innocent, citing DNA tests they say found no match between any of the team’s white players and the accuser.

Evans’ attorney, Joseph Cheshire, said the woman identified Evans with “90 percent certainty” during a photo lineup. She told police she would be 100 percent sure if Evans had a mustache, Cheshire said, something he said his client has never had.

At his news conference, Evans was backed by several lacrosse players and by his family, including mother Rae Evans, a Washington lobbyist who is also the chairwoman of the Ladies Professional Golf Association board of directors.

Evans said that he and his roommates helped police find evidence at the house, and that he gave investigators access to his e-mail and instant messenger accounts. He said his offer to take a lie-detector test was rejected by authorities, so he took one on through his attorneys.

“I have told the truth from the beginning,” he said.

Duke canceled the lacrosse team’s season after the rape allegations surfaced and accepted the resignation of its coach. Duke President Richard Brodhead initiated a series of investigations, one of which concluded administrators were slow to react to the scandal in part because of initial doubts about the accuser’s credibility.

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