A controversial rape case is dividing the town of Steubenville, Ohio. Court proceedings against two high school football players accused of the rape have begun.
Both sides are telling wildly different versions of what happened that night. The two football players have been accused of raping a highly intoxicated teenage girl.
Prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter stated that the defendants Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, “treated the alleged victim like a toy.” Hemmeter is claiming that the young girl, 16, was entirely too intoxicated to consent to sex.
Hemmeter stated, the girl was “somebody too impaired to say ‘No’, somebody who was too impaired to say stop.”
The two teen boys are star football players for Steubenville’s Big Red football team. They are accused of penetrating the Weirton, WV teen with their fingers.
The teenagers were out on a booze-filled night in Ohio in August 2012. The teens were going from one party to another at some point in the night violated that teenage girl.
Local residents of the area were outraged when a picture was posted on Instagram showing the accused carrying the semi-conscious girl by her hands and legs. A source from the area said that the town was being torn in half because of the rape trial.
The source went on to say that, “half of the town believes the star football players did not rape the girl but the other half are outraged that anyone would question how drunk the girl was that night.”
When one witness testified that the boys walked on the girls hair when the picture was taken, the prosecutor described the victims night as one of “degradation, humiliation and violation.”
Hemmeter went on to state that the witness will testify to the fact that Mays tried “to put his penis in her mouth but because her mouth wouldn’t open, he abandoned that attempt.” However both of the young men insist that the girl knew exactly what was going on at the time.
Richmond gave an interview to ABC News 20/20 scheduled to air later this month. In the interview he said, “She had her arm wrapped around me and one hand on my chest. It just felt like she was coming on to me.”
Richmond went on to claim that when the picture in question was taken the girl was joking around. He said, “She was just like laughing, we were all talking, just clowning around.”
The football players lawyer stated, “There’s an abundance of evidence here that she was making decisions, cognitive choices.”
Richmond and Mays are being tried in juvenile court. They have both pleaded not guilty.
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