Two students and members of the Steubenville High School football team, Trent Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl during series of end of summer parties on August 11, 2012, the Associated Press reported. They were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile jail. The case involved a "a barrage of morning-after text messages, social media posts and online photos and video," the AP reported. Mays was sentenced to an additional year in jail on a charge of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material. That sentence will be served after his rape sentence is completed.
Prosecutors charged the teenagers treated the young woman "like a toy," and were charged with digitally penetrating (fingering) her first in the back seat of a moving car, and later in the basement of a house. They were also ordered to avoid contact with the West Virginia girl until they are 21.
The case received widespread attention in the U.S., since they posted images of the victim in a seemingly unconscious state to social media sites.
The trial opened last week as a contest between prosecutors who were depicting the victim as so drunk she could not have been a willing participant that night. Defense attorneys sought to prove that the girl, though drunk, knew what she was doing.
The teenage girl testified on Saturday, indicating she could not recall what happened the night of the attack, only saying she left the party holding hands with Mays and vomiting later.
"It was really scary," she said. "I honestly did not know what to think because I could not remember anything." The girl said she believed she was assaulted when she later read text messages among friends and saw a photo of herself taken that night, along with a video that made fun of her and the alleged attack.
