STEUBENVILLE, Ohio, March 17 (UPI) — A judge found two Steubenville, Ohio, teen football players Sunday guilty of raping an allegedly drunk 16-year-old girl at a series of parties.
Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, were found delinquent — the juvenile equivalent of guilty — by Judge Thomas Lipps after four days of testimony The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported.
Witnesses testified two football players digitally penetrated the girl, which constitutes rape in the state of Ohio. The girl, whose name was not reported, testified she was intoxicated at the time of the incident, calling into question her ability to understand what was happening and to consent, CNN reported.
Much of the four-day trial focused on explicit text messages sent between the victim and the defendants, and the defendants and others, as well cellphone pictures and videos and social media posts surrounding the sexual abuse of the girl.
Mays and Richmond will likely undergo evaluation to determine their risk level, which the judge will use to decide if they should be committed to a juvenile detention facility, the Plain Dealer reported. The assessment could also help classify them into a sexual offender registration tier.
The two teens face the possibility of being jailed until they are 21 years old.
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