About 20 reporters and a handful of hecklers also were waiting for him.
"Justice works!" a woman shouted.
"I hope your family gets what you gave those families, you scumbag," a man said loudly.
Nifong, dressed in a white polo shirt and khaki pants, did not talk to reporters. Durham County Sheriff Worth Hill said the former prosecutor would probably have a cell to himself and would not be allowed to interact with other inmates for safety reasons.
The father of one of the men Nifong had accused said his family took no personal satisfaction in Nifong's sentence but found solace that the justice system worked.
"The bottom line is it shows that there were no winners in this entire fiasco," Phil Seligmann said by phone from his New Jersey home. "That's clear."
Duke University lacrosse players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and Dave Evans were accused of raping a woman who had been hired to strip at a team party in March 2006. Nifong pursued the case and won indictments, but the charges were eventually thrown out by state prosecutors, who declared the players innocent victims of a "tragic rush to accuse." In Nifong's contempt case, the judge found that the former district attorney withheld for months DNA evidence that helped exonerate the players.
The three are now seeking a $30 million settlement and changes in the legal process, two people close to the case said yesterday. If the terms aren't met, they will sue early next month, the sources said on condition of anonymity because the proposed settlement wasn't complete.
Both sources stressed that the money must be accompanied by legal changes, with one saying the roughly $10 million for each family would be paid out over five years.
