Video causes web furor over athletes’ rape case

Activists from the online group Anony­mous protest at the Jef­fer­son County Cour­t­house in Steubenville Dec. 29, 2012. Mem­bers of the group said they are out­raged over what they con­tend is a cover-up in a case involv­ing the alleged rape of a teenage girl by Steubenville High School student-athletes that report­edly occurred in 2012. Police esti­mated the crowd at 300. (Cour­tesy | Steubenville Herald-Star, Michael D. McElwain)

KANTELE FRANKO

Asso­ci­ated Press

STEUBENVILLE — An online video fuel­ing social media reac­tion to the case of two east­ern Ohio high school foot­ball play­ers charged with rape isn’t new evi­dence for state inves­ti­ga­tors han­dling the case, the attor­ney gen­eral said Friday.

The 16-year-old boys are set for trial Feb. 13 in juve­nile court in Steubenville on alle­ga­tions that they raped a teenage girl last August. Spe­cial pros­e­cu­tors and a vis­it­ing judge are han­dling the case because local author­i­ties knew peo­ple involved with the foot­ball team in the small city.

At a prob­a­ble cause hear­ing last fall, teenagers not charged in the case tes­ti­fied that the vic­tim was intox­i­cated and at times unre­spon­sive on the night of the alleged assault, accord­ing to the local news­pa­per, the Steubenville Herald-Star.

Pub­lic inter­est increased this week with the online cir­cu­la­tion of an unver­i­fied video, last­ing more than 12 min­utes, that pur­port­edly shows another young man jok­ing about the alleged rape vic­tim, also 16. The video appar­ently was released by hack­ers who allege more peo­ple were involved and should be held accountable.

Ohio Attor­ney Gen­eral Mike DeWine’s office said state inves­ti­ga­tors aid­ing local police were aware of the video before it spread online. They’re not com­ment­ing on details of the video or what other evi­dence author­i­ties have.

DeWine crit­i­cized the video Fri­day and said his heart goes out to rape victims.

“I think what is unique and dif­fer­ent about this case is that the vic­tim con­tin­ues to be vic­tim­ized every time that there is some image that’s posted up on the Inter­net, every time that you have a despi­ca­ble 12-minute video like we saw yes­ter­day,” he said. “You know, I can just imag­ine how I would feel if this was my daughter.”

Attor­neys for the defen­dants, Trent Mays and Ma’Lik Rich­mond, who played foot­ball for Steubenville High School, didn’t imme­di­ately respond to Asso­ci­ated Press requests for com­ment Fri­day. The attor­neys have denied the charges in court.

The boys were charged with rape after the teenage girl’s par­ents con­tacted police about the alleged assault in mid-August. Mays also is charged with ille­gal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.

Kid­nap­ping charges against both defen­dants were dropped after a prob­a­ble cause hear­ing, accord­ing to the court. The vis­it­ing judge has ruled the case will remain in juve­nile court, not be moved to adult court.

Author­i­ties con­tinue plead­ing for any­one with infor­ma­tion about what hap­pened to come for­ward, and the inves­ti­ga­tion has spurred heated com­men­tary online. Some sup­port the defen­dants and ques­tion the char­ac­ter of the teenage girl, while oth­ers allege a cover-up or con­tend more peo­ple should be charged.

The lat­ter group includes hacker-activists asso­ci­at­ing under the Anony­mous and Knight­Sec labels who point to com­ments they say were posted around the time of the alleged attack on social media by sev­eral peo­ple who are not charged. A peace­ful protest pub­li­cized by the hack­ers drew scores of peo­ple to the local cour­t­house last weekend.

In a related issue, stu­dent Cody Salts­man and his fam­ily sued a blog­ger and anony­mous posters to her blog site in a case that arose from online com­ments sug­gest­ing the stu­dent might have been involved but not charged. The suit was set­tled with the oper­a­tor of the crime blog acknowl­edg­ing that there was no evi­dence of Saltsman’s involve­ment in the rape, and Salts­man apol­o­giz­ing in a state­ment for tweets he sent the night of the alleged attack.

The alleged vic­tim, who doesn’t attend Steubenville schools, is “doing as well as I guess could be expected,” said Bob Fitzsim­mons, an attor­ney for her fam­ily. He said the pub­lic­ity and online com­men­tary has been tough on her family.

It’s pos­si­ble she could be com­pelled to tes­tify in court next month, but that deci­sion is up to pros­e­cu­tors, Fitzsim­mons said. He declined to com­ment on any facts of the case, includ­ing whether or how the vic­tim knew Mays and Richmond.

Posted by AP News on Jan 4 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.