14 DAY TRIAL // Two popular high-school football players have been convicted in the case regarding the rape of a 16-year-old student from Steubenville, Ohio last August.
CBS reports that 16-year-old Ma'Lik Richmond has been found delinquent, while 17-year-old Trent Mays has been found guilty of showing photos of the naked minor, a felony charge.
“If they were convicted in an adult court of these charges they would be spending many years in an adult prison,” Judge Thomas Lipps said after the trial.
Richmond will be serving 1 year in a juvenile facility, while Mays was convicted to two years, having distributed photographs with the girl, on top of also being registered as delinquent.
Among the items of evidence brought in by the prosecution were text messages sent after the incident, describing the victim as being so intoxicated that she appeared lifeless.
“You were like you were dead...I seriously felt so bad and couldn't do anything about it,” reads a text message sent by one of the guests at the party to the victim.
“Who was there? What happened to me?,” the girl wrote in another text message.
“I'm sorry for what you all had to go through. I hope somewhere in your hearts that you can forgive Trent and Ma'Lik for the pain they have caused your daughter,” Richmond's father told the girl's family in court, after sentencing.
“We're sorry for putting everybody through this...Ma'Lik's family, the community, the school, everybody else,” Mays' father added.
Prosecutors are now set to bring to justice other teens at that party, and have announced that sixteen people may be facing charges.
According to a statement by Ohio State Attorney General Mike DeWine relayed by DMN, a Grand Jury hearing has been set up for April 15, at which time the other cases will be presented.
“We’ve gone a long way in this investigation and we’re almost there. The grand jury will finish up that investigation,” DeWine notes.