STEUBENVILLE,
Ohio (AP) -- The ordeal of an eastern Ohio community roiled by
allegations of rape against two high school football players is far from
over, despite the teens' conviction for the crime and their sentence to
juvenile prison terms.
The announcement of
the verdict was barely an hour old Sunday when state Attorney General
Mike DeWine said he was continuing his investigation and would consider
charges against anyone who failed to speak up after the attack last
summer, a group that could include other teens, parents, coaches and
school officials.
A grand jury will meet in
mid-April to consider evidence gathered by investigators from dozens of
interviews, including with the football team's 27 coaches.
Text
messages introduced at the trial suggested the head coach was aware of
the rape allegation early on. DeWine said coaches are among officials
required by state law to report child abuse. The coach and the school
district have repeatedly declined to comment.
"I've
reached the conclusion that this investigation cannot be completed,
simply cannot be completed, that we cannot bring finality to this matter
without the convening of a grand jury," DeWine said.
The
attorney general, Ohio's top law enforcement official, also said the
rape was not an isolated problem specific to Steubenville. Sexual
assaults occur every Friday and Saturday night across the country,
DeWine said, calling it "a societal problem."
Trent
Mays, 17, and Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, were sentenced to at least a year in
juvenile prison in a case that has rocked this Rust Belt city of 18,000
and led to allegations of a cover-up to protect the Steubenville High
team, which has won nine state championships. Mays was ordered to serve
an additional year for photographing the underage girl naked.
They can be held until they turn 21.
The
two broke down in tears after a Juvenile Court judge delivered his
verdict. They later apologized to the victim and the community, Richmond
struggling to speak through his sobs.
"My life is over," he said as he collapsed in the arms of his lawyer.
The
crime, which took place after a party last summer, shocked many in
Steubenville because of the seeming callousness with which other
students took out their cellphones to record the attack and gossiped
about it online. In fact, the case came to light via a barrage of
morning-after text messages, social media posts and online photos and
video.
"Many of the things we learned during
this trial that our children were saying and doing were profane, were
ugly," Judge Thomas Lipps said.
Mays and
Richmond were charged with penetrating the West Virginia girl with their
fingers, first in the back seat of a moving car after a mostly underage
drinking party on Aug. 11, and then in the basement of a house.
"They treated her like a toy," prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter said.
Prosecutors
argued that the victim was so intoxicated she couldn't consent to sex
that night, while the defense contended the girl realized what she was
doing and was known to lie.
The girl testified she could not recall what happened but woke up naked in a strange house after drinking at a party.
"It was really scary," she said. "I honestly did not know what to think because I could not remember anything."
She
said she believed she was assaulted when she later read text messages
among friends and saw a photo of herself naked, along with a video that
made fun of her and the alleged attack.
Three
other boys, two of them on the football team, saw something happening
that night and didn't try to stop it but instead recorded it with their
cellphones. Granted immunity to testify, they confirmed the girl was
assaulted and said she was so drunk she didn't seem to know what was
happening.
Evidence at the trial also included
sexually explicit text messages sent by numerous students after the
party. Lawyers noted how texts have seemed to replace talking on the
phone for young people. A computer forensic expert documented hundreds
of thousands of texts found on 17 phones seized during the
investigation.
In sentencing the boys, Lipps
urged parents and others "to have discussions about how you talk to your
friends, how you record things on the social media so prevalent today
and how you conduct yourself when drinking is put upon you by your
friends."
After the arrests, the case was
furiously debated on blogs and social media, with some people warning of
conspiracies and conflicts of interest. On Sunday, Hemmeter, the
prosecutor, criticized efforts by the hacker collective Anonymous to
publicize the case, saying the attention had a chilling effect on those
willing to testify.
After the verdict, the accuser's mother rebuked the boys for "lack of any moral code."
"You
were your own accuser, through the social media that you chose to
publish your criminal conduct on," she said. She added that the case
"does not define who my daughter is. She will persevere, grow and move
on."
Echoing that, the judge said that "as bad
as things have been for all of the children involved in this case, they
can all change their lives for the better."
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