Ryan McFadyen, Matthew Wilson and Breck Archer accuse the defendants of pursuing the case despite evidence the allegations were false.

The 389-page lawsuit, filed in federal court in Greensboro, names 45 defendants who include Mike Nifong — the former Durham district attorney who was disbarred for misconduct in the case — police investigators, city officials and nurses who examined the accuser.

The plaintiffs, who allege negligence, fraud and conspiracy, accuse Nifong of pursuing the criminal charges for political gain amid a closely contested Democratic primary.

"This case is a reckoning; it is an accounting of those who were willing to obstruct and pervert justice to serve their own selfish aims, those who had the power to intervene and did not, and the damage they have done," the lawsuit reads.

The players seek unspecified damages.

While the school "made some mistakes when the allegations first surfaced," the lawsuit should be targeted at others, university officials said in a news release.

"Duke University reasonably relied on the statements of a prosecutor whose path of destruction could be stopped only by the North Carolina attorney general," the statement read, noting that Duke has offered to reimburse the attorneys' fees and expenses of players who weren't indicted.

Kimberly Grantham, senior assistant city attorney for Durham, said she wasn't prepared to comment because she hadn't read the entire lawsuit.

Bob Ekstrand, a Durham lawyer representing the players, did not immediately return a call for comment.

Jim Craven, the attorney representing Nifong in a separate lawsuit filed by the three players falsely charged in the case, declined to comment through an office assistant. A call to Nifong's home Tuesday was not immediately returned.

McFadyen, Wilson and Archer were members of the lacrosse team when three other players were indicted after a black woman told police she was raped at a March 2006 team party where she was hired as a stripper.

The men were among 46 of the team's 47 members who complied with a judge's order to provide DNA samples and be photographed. The team's sole black member was not tested because the woman said her attackers were white.

Duke suspended McFadyen amid the criminal investigation for an e-mail he sent shortly after the team party in which he described how he would kill and skin strippers, according to court documents. Administrators later reinstated McFadyen, noting that his remarks were "in jest" and a takeoff from "American Psycho," a novel by Bret Easton Ellis made into a movie about a serial killer.

The lawsuit includes an allegation that authorities put the e-mail's contents in a search warrant application, knowing it would be public record, but deleted previous messages in the same string that showed McFadyen was joking.

McFadyen, of Mendham, N.J., is a senior listed on the 2007-08 Blue Devils roster. Wilson, of Durham, and Archer, of East Quogue, N.Y., were listed as seniors on the spring 2006-07 roster, but it was unclear whether they still attend the university.

Nifong won indictments last year against former players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans. But the case crumbled amid questions about the accuser's story, and Nifong turned over the prosecution to the state.

Attorney General Roy Cooper dismissed the remaining charges in April, calling the three innocent victims of Nifong's "tragic rush to accuse."

Nifong resigned shortly after he was disbarred. He spent a night in jail after being found in criminal contempt for lying to the court during a hearing in the case.