RALEIGH, N.C. – Mike Nifong spent nearly three decades building a reputation as an honest prosecutor. Yet he is seen today as a bane to peers, many of whom feel tarnished by his mistakes in the now-infamous Duke lacrosse rape case.

His colleagues at the courthouse in Durham remain at a loss to explain how it happened.

“It’s still kind of difficult for me to see how we got here,” said Woody Vann, a lawyer in Durham. “It is kind of a tragedy. He reached a certain height and … he got presented with a matter that was just more than he could handle.”

On Tuesday – more than a year after he took the lead in investigating claims three men raped a stripper at a March 2006 party thrown by Duke’s highly ranked lacrosse team – the Durham County district attorney will stand trial on ethics charges ranging from lying to the court to withholding potentially exculpatory evidence.

Gone are the days when Nifong railed against the lacrosse team to every reporter and TV camera within earshot. Mocked in the press and by the public for his handling of the collapsed case, Nifong is keeping a low profile as he prepares for a fight that could end with his disbarment.

“On one hand, he’s very anxious to go ahead and have the hearing so he can present the evidence about the allegations against him,” said David Freedman, one of Nifong’s two attorneys. “On the other hand, it’s an extremely stressful situation for any lawyer to go through, especially at this level and profile.”

If Nifong is acquitted, the case will have still taken a devastating toll on the career public servant who joined the Durham County prosecutor’s office as a volunteer in 1978 after graduating from law school. He is all but assured to be remembered for pursuing a deeply flawed case with unyielding vigor while portraying himself as a crusader against privilege and racism at an elite private university.