Was One of the Steubenville Raptist Accouse of Rape Again

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On the quaternary and penultimate solar day of an already long and emotional rape trial recounting a drunken and allegedly violent evening, told in tears and text messages, the Jane Doe victim finally took the stand to testify Saturday, and there was more than of all of that. Subsequently two-and-a-half hours of testimony, a movie emerges of a 16-year-old girl who got drunker than she thought she should have, who forgot the night and woke up scared and surrounded, and whose family just brought charges afterwards a barrage of questions from doctors and intimidation from suspects Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, stars on the Steubenville High football game squad. This is her version of the events.

The girl, later on beingness called by the prosecution, said she had a few drinks, a "mixed drinkable so a red Smirnoff ice drink in a reddish solo loving cup with ice," WTRF'south Laurie Conway reports, before starting to feel funny. The alcohol was making her human activity differently than she normally would while drunkard. She said she was interested in Mays, and followed him to another political party considering she trusted him. And so, while on the stand up, the victim was shown a pic, for the first fourth dimension, of her passed out at one of the many parties on the night of August 11. She instantly started crying, as did her female parent and at least 2 other women in the courtroom. She was asked how she felt about seeing the nude photo of herself: "Not skillful," she said. She said the terminal thing she remembers from that nighttime was leaving the last party, with her friends behind her. "A lot of people were leaving at that time," she said.

Cut to the next morning time. The next affair she remembers, Jane Doe said, is waking upward "embarrassed, scared, not sure what to retrieve," under a blanket in an unfamiliar place surrounded by three boys. She said it was "really scary." She got upward to get dressed, only no i could find her phone or her underwear. Two of her friends picked her up, and after a short trip to drop off the 2 defendants, they started yelling at her over what they were hearing near the night before. She didn't recollect anything they were yelling at her for. Doe repeatedly said she felt "freaked out and embarrassed" for blacking out on the events of the evening.

After getting dropped off at her mom's house, she immediately admitted to her female parent that she didn't remember anything and that she couldn't find her shoes or phone. Getting in trouble was "the terminal thing on my mind," she said. Eventually, she started to hear about what was circling on social media. At this signal in the testimony, Doe started crying over again after being shown a photograph in the courtroom, one she had already seen. She said the carpet in the photo matched the basement room she woke up in.

The girl said she thought she knew everything she drank that night, and had never blacked out before. Only afterward insistence from a number of immediate and extended family members did she go to the infirmary to get checked out. There, two days afterwards the party, doctors told her a rape kit wouldn't show anything because of the amount of time between the set on and the hospital visit. She was reluctant to tell the doctor the names of the boys involved; she didn't want to go involved in whatsoever of the drama that would ensue. (She did absolve Charlie Keenan, the son of the one-time prosecutor who was named in the original study, from doing anything that night.) Just that didn't stop of the defendants from texting her repeatedly over the few days later party, aimlessly the forenoon afterward, and "freaking out," she says, asking whether or non she was going to tell the police force.

Eventually her parents reported the alleged assault to the police. She sent a text message to 1 of the defendants, apparently Mays, insisting that she didn't want to become to the cops: "Nosotros know y'all didn't rape me," it said. The girl went on to say that she had not been aware at the time that digital penetration was also considered rape.

The prosecution showed a series of text messages to the court sent between Jane Doe and Mays and Richmond in the following days. She alleged that i of the defendants, apparently Mays, said that the the football team's coach, who will accept the stand up at the trial as well, called his business firm and told them they raped her, and the defendant asked her to "tell her dad the truth." She said social media was telling a different story. "This is the well-nigh pointless matter. I am gonna get in trouble for nothing," he allegedly texted her. "Y'all know what happened, there'southward no video, so nothing happened," another text from Mays read. The defendants told her she had been a hassle, and that they "took care of her." But when she saw the video of Steubenville High athlete Michael Nodianos making fun of her, she thought differently: "I knew everyone telling me that they were taking care of me, that that was not true," she said. One of the defendants, plainly Mays, too admitted, in a text bulletin, to taking a picture of his actual fluids on her later they were done doing whatever they allegedly did:

Text from Def one to Jane Doe "That was my (semen) on yous, not (urine)."

— Eric Minor (@EricWTOV9) March sixteen, 2013

The girl told the court she believed she was drugged, a accuse that has been challenged past the very friends — at present former friends — who testified confronting her for the defense. Before on Saturday, an good for the defence said the victim'south blood alcohol content would have been an estimated .eighteen or .25 and that the girl should take been able to voluntarily make her own decisions, even if she didn't remember them. Her testimony focused primarily on whether the girl was "blackness out boozer," or "passed out boozer," with the expert ruling for the old. Simply and so this happened:

On cross-examination, prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter showed Fromme a picture of the teen daughter apparently passed out and beingness carried by the defendants. Fromme said she had not seen the moving-picture show. Fromme as well had not seen pictures of the girl laying naked on a couch and on the flooring of a basement.

That photo — an Instagram image that has come to stand up for the complex social-media trial that proceeded the actual 1 — has been seen my millions of people. And still the defense is relying on a strategy apropos levels of drunkenness to bear witness consent. But at present Jane Doe has told her story for the prosecution, as she does and does not remember it. Judge Thomas Lipps is expected, after some other long day of emotional testimony from the football game coach and more, to announce a verdict on Lord's day.

Update: The defence has rested and closing arguments are underway. You lot can watch video here, and stay tuned to the ClevelandEvidently-Dealer and WTRF'south Conway for updates. Approximate Lipps may brand his ruling this night.

Update No. 2: Subsequently emotional closing arguments from both sides, Approximate Lipps said he would review the evidence and the new text messages revealed during the victim's testimony, and denote his determination on Lord's day morning at 10 a.m. Central time. Richmond'south attorney, Walter Madison, said that "the whole world was watching" merely that the country had not presented enough testify to prove rape — he repeated that not of Richmond'south Dna had been found on the victim's blanket, shorts, or the couch where two of the sexual activity acts allegedly occurs, and that the "substance" plant on the victim could not exist confirmed. Prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter said the evidence was "overwhelming" and, regarding the victim, that "the things that made her an imperfect witnes... fabricated her a perfect victim. Hemmeter continued: "This instance isn't about a YouTube video. This case isn't about social media. This case isn't almost Large Red football. This case is about a 16-yr-old girl who was taken advantage of, toyed with, and humiliated, and it'due south time to the people who did that to her are held responsible."

The divergent arguments were in stark contrast: The defense insisted that "we'll never know what happened that night" while the prosecution said "we'll never know how much" she drank and that "we'll never know" whether she was drugged. The attack that allegedly happened in betwixt the drinking and the next morning, well, that's up to the judge. (Juvenile court in Ohio does not have a jury.) Stay tuned for updates in the forenoon.

Correction : An earlier version of this piece dislocated identifiers when referring to the before the "took care of her" line. It was the defendants who told the victim she was a hassle, and not the other way around. We regret the error and it'south been corrected in a higher place.

Update: Guilty.

This commodity is from the annal of our partner The Wire.

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Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/steubenville-victim-testimony/317302/

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