Amazing

For those who thought that nothing left in the case could shock them, guess again.

The Charlotte Observer revealed that Board of Trustees chairman Bob Steel has become a . . . movie investor. (Steel, of course, has additional time on his hands, having presided over the collapse of Wachovia.)

That’s the same Bob Steel who:

• privately claimed that something “terrible, terrible” happened in the lacrosse captains’ house;

• misled other trustees into believing that the administration had stayed in close contact with the families of the three falsely accused players;

• maintained his position as BOT chairman despite an apparent conflict of interest;

• said that the Trustees had approved of Richard Brodhead’s “principles that he established and the actions he took,” including the president’s indefensible statement that a trial would allow “our students to be proved innocent.”

According to financial disclosure forms required from Steel’s tenure at the Treasury Department, Steel invested between $1 million and $5 million in a movie based on a book penned by a Duke faculty member.

The faculty member? Tim Tyson.

That’s the same Tim Tyson who:

• in seeming violation of the Faculty Handbook, participated “as a teacher” in a “candlelight vigil” outside the lacrosse captains’ house;

• suggested that that Duke students refusing to speak to Sgt. Mark Gottlieb without presence of their attorneys “may be illegal”;

• wildly claimed that Duke students embodied “the spirit of the lynch mob”;

• blamed society for Crystal Mangum’s conduct.

And then, when the case upon which he had based his calumnies utterly collapsed, Tyson proclaimed that he would “stand by” everything he said, and that he had articulated a “reasonably thoughtful stance(!!)” on the case.

That’s the faculty member whose work product has benefited from a huge investment the chairman of the Duke BOT?

Will we next hear that Steel has doubled down, and donated to the Mike Nifong legal defense fund?