• Thu, Mar 14 - 8:23 am ET

Day One Of The Steubenville Gang Rape Trial – ‘She Was Treated Like A Toy’

Screen Shot 2013-03-13 at 6.25.12 PMYesterday began the Steubenville, Ohio Big Red football gang rape trial and six witnesses testified, all choosing to not have their testimonies televised. In opening statements, attorney Marianne Hemmeter of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office stated that the 16-year-old victim, the Jane Doe in this case, was in no condition to give her consent to any of the activities that took place during the evening of August 11th and the early morning of August 12th. Her name was mentioned during opening statements, but I will continue to call her Jane Doe out of respect for the victim, her assault and her age. Hemmeter stated that Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, the two 16-year-old football players accused of raping Jane Doe, were able to drag her from house to house and commit the acts they are accused of because of the victim’s inebriation level.  “This case will hinge on the defendant’s knowledge of how drunk she was. They took advantage of it, and quite frankly, they treated her like a toy,” stated Hemmeter. Several teen witnesses during the day stated that the victim had been drinking vodka mixed with a convenience store slushy drink and that she became inebriated very quickly.

The parties began at the Belardine house, which belongs to assistant coach Matt Belardine, and during the probable cause hearing it was stated that the party was hosted by his 16-year-old sister, with roughly 30-40 people in attendance. Then the party moved to the Howarth house where it was stated that the victim vomited numerous times. When they were asked to leave this location, the victim was vomiting in the street with her blouse removed, and someone was offering money to people willing to urinate on her. The infamous photograph of the victim being held by Richmond and Mays was taken at this location.The young girl who testified to this requested that the boys stop dragging her around because they were stepping on the victim’s hair. Shortly after, Ma’lik Richmond threw the victim over his shoulder and took her out of the house.

It was during the car ride to their final destination of the house belonging to Mark Cole where Cole filmed a video on his cell phone of Trent Mays digitally penetrating the victim with his fingers by Trent Mays. At the previous locations, other peers and party-atendees witnessed a photograph taken of the victim posted on social media and sent to their cell phones where she is said to have been on her hands and knees, her pants off, with Trent Mays behind her spreading her buttocks. Richmond is shown in the background. A witness testified that he “thought they had just had sex with her.” Michael Nodianos was also shown this photograph and that is what prompted his 12 minute rant against the victim, claiming she was “raped” and that she was a “dead girl.” When asked about the photograph, a witness stated ”Everyone was shocked as to what was going on. There was a mixture of jokes going around and people being scared.”  Hemmeter said the victim again was digitally penetrated in the basement of the Cole house. She said a photograph was taken of the victim on her side and it appeared there was semen on her.

One of the young female witnesses who testified claimed she had also seen a photograph where it appeared the victim had been urinated on. DNA testing done on a blanket recovered from the Cole home showed semen belonging to Trent Mays on the blanket.

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  • chickadee

    So far, the testimony is making ABC’s coverage look vile. It simultaneously manages to make the potential loss of Richmond’s majestic football dream look like the real tragedy in all this while also subtly setting up a situation where even the kindness of white people who treated him like family can’t save him.

    If these two guys are acquitted…..

    • http://www.xojane.com/author/eve Eve Vawter

      “where even the kindness of white people who treated him like family can’t save him.” Brilliant point Chicky

  • Blueathena623

    I’ve been trying to follow this case, but it makes me very upset. Were there NO instances of anyone ever saying “hey, we should stop this?”

    • Fabel

      Same here. It’s appalling that there were so many witnesses, & yet no kind soul put a stop to it or, better yet, took this poor girl home & away from these awful f’ing people (without raping her as well?? I sadly feel as if I need to add that…)

      I know there’s the bystander effect & all, but Jesus Christ. I can see “bystander effect” being an issue when it’s something vague—maybe that woman spanked her kid, but is it my place to intervene? Was that a gunshot, or a truck backfiring? Did someone just scream? But this is far beyond those instances, I just really don’t understand how literally nobody put a stop to this. Horrible.

    • Daisy

      Right? At any party I’ve ever been to, when someone is this drunk, male or female, people will start looking out for them, ask if they’re ok, cut them off, get them some water or a sandwich, take them to the bathroom to throw up, hold back their hair, take them home, put them to bed, or any combination of the above. That is just the norm. It absolutely sickens me that not one of those people would do those things. And that is just the failure to do good things for her, but then to also stand by and watch people do horrible things? How is that level of cruelty even possible? This whole article just made me cry.

    • http://www.xojane.com/author/eve Eve Vawter

      Sorry, it should be noted that someone did bring her a water bottle, right before someone else offered to pay people $3 to piss on her.

    • Gangle

      I just don’t think that being 16 and wanting to fit in is at all an excuse for not doing the right thing, especially as there would have been more than one way of actually doing the right thing. When I was that age I remember being at a party where a girl got super drunk. Now, I don’t know if that situation would have resulted in her being attacked or taken advantage of, or even end up in hospital. I DO know that she wasn’t ok. I DO know it was at a party with guys I didn’t know or really trust. I wasn’t particularly popular or confident to stand up to anyone. But I snitched. I called her folks. She hated me the next day. I was in trouble for being at a party with alcohol. We didn’t speak again. I did nothing to improve my social standing at school. I read horror stories like this case and I regret nothing.
      Really, in this day and age of technology and communication, surely someone could have contacted her parents, or a sibling or a friend or a TAXI to come and get her – heck, even an ambulance or the cops – and done it with relative anonyminity. If just one person had called a taxi right at the beginning, when she got so wasted she no longer knew what was going on, she would have made it home. She would have woken up the next day with a hangover, and probably would have gotten herself in trouble with her parents. She probably would have had to face the shame of getting so intoxicated in front of her peers for like a month… and then gotten on with her life. Sad that not one person had any decency.

    • michelle pittman

      or i don’t know…maybe the adult present at the house where they were asked to leave could have called someone…i can’t imagine…as a parent OR adult…if my kids and a group of their friends brought a girl so inebriated that she had to be CARRIED around, i would, without a DOUBT take control of the situation…

    • Gangle

      The reality is, all it would have taken was for one person (adult or otherwise – I really can’t call these underaged people ‘kids’ since they chose to act out some pretty reprehensible adult behaviour) to take jane does phone and use it send an anonymous phone call or text message to her parents. No further intervention needed. But they chose instead to ‘go with the crowd’. Shaking your head in disgust and looking in the other direction does nothing to exonnerate you in my opinion. We aren’t talking about a girl who got drunk and then someone drew a fake moustache on her and then posted it on facebook to upset her here… we are talking about a girl that was BRUTALLY gang raped and abused simply because… they were bored? …it was a bonding exercise? …they were horny and she was there? I don’t really care if there was a legal adult present, everyone directly or indirectly should be facing charges.

    • Blueathena623

      Are those high school parties you’re thinking of, or college/adult parties? I didn’t go to many parties with alcohol while in high school, but the few I went to were smaller, post-prom parties with 15, 20 people max. Then again, thinking back, even then, when one of the girls got too drunk or sick the rest of us girls would flock around like mother hens.
      There are many stories that I read about teenage behaviour where I like to think “oh, I totally would have behaved differently” although if I were still a 16 year old trying to fit in I probably would not have, but this is one case where I 100% believe I would have tried to do something, tried to take her home or at least stand up to those assholes.

    • whiteroses

      Well, that, and they filmed it. And Tweeted about it. And there are probably FB postings on it somewhere.
      You have to wonder what these kids were thinking.

  • MRASoldier

    In Alabama, a man was actually raped by a woman and was still ordered to
    pay child support. This man got drunk at a party and passed out. The
    next morning he awoke in bed, naked from the waist down. He testified
    that he did not remember having sex. Others testified that the mother
    had actually bragged about having sex with him when he was “passed out”
    and “wasn’t even aware of it.” This constitutes rape in most states, yet
    the man was ordered to pay support to the woman who was apparently not
    even criminally charged. Point being if men can be raped while drunk then why should it be different for women.

    • Makabit

      I’m not familiar with the case, but God knows, there are a lot of terrible outcomes of rape reports and trials out there, and without being too much of a jerk about Alabama, I’m guessing they have their fair share.

      Many people, however, see this as an incentive to improve our system, and our treatment of rape victims, rather than playing ‘whatabout’ games.

    • Tinyfaeri

      Seriously? Because a drunk man got raped and was denied justice in court, then forced to pay child support (which is terrible if it happened, I can’t find it on any news site or an actual case, just a reference in a “men’s rights” blog that cited no sources for the story), it’s OK to rape drunk women? Don’t be an ass. No one’s saying that men should be raped, just that women shouldn’t. I don’t know how someone could argue otherwise, even sarcastically.

    • Tinyfaeri

      I did some more looking and did find a brief mention of a 34 year old Alabama man who was raped while drunk and passed out and then forced to pay child support in a 2011 newspaper story about a teenage boy who was fighting a child support claim from his ex girlfriend who he stated raped him and that was how she got pregnant. It was a very small note that I can’t find anywhere else (but I’m not a lawyer) – still a terrible thing.
      But that should still go to show that rape is bad. Rape is evil. Rape sucks. Rapists are bad people who should be punished. We need to fix our system so rape victims of all kinds and from all walks of life are taken seriously and that rapists are always prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The reaction to it should not be anything to the effect of “Well if one person’s rape is inadequately prosecuted, everyone’s should be! Free raping of drunk people over here, y’all!”

    • whiteroses

      Couldn’t say this better. If ANYONE is too drunk to consent to having sex, then it’s rape. And I have no sympathy for anyone that does it. But if there’s no double standard with men, then there isn’t with women either.

    • Gangle

      Ummm…. Sick. Just sick. It is sick that anyone – man or woman – could be raped and not recieve justice. And it is sick that you think that just because this man did not get justice that this young girl does not deserve it.
      I guess anybody CAN be raped whilst drunk… but the point is, nobody SHOULD be raped whilst drunk. OR high OR sober OR drugged….

    • K.

      The law, as you point out, is pretty clear: you can’t have sex with someone, woman OR man, without their consent. There is no legal double-standard in that sense–men can be raped by women AND other men just as women can be raped by men and other women.

      Unfortunately, if the case was as you’ve told it, then it doesn’t sound like there was actual evidence of the rape–that’s not to say it didn’t happen; that’s to say that it would be difficult to prove rape versus consensual sex. The only ‘evidence’ offered is hearsay, which isn’t really evidence. When you factor in the child support, I would bet that a decent defense attorney could argue that the man was lying about the rape specifically in order to avoid paying child support. I’m not saying that’s what happened; I’m saying that the case you’re referencing, as you’ve described it, wasn’t going to be successful in prosecuting.

      The Steubenville case has real evidence in the form of actual witnesses and photographs (and video? I can’t remember with all the disturbing schlock).

  • otterpop

    i was raped as a teeanger (twice, actually, but for the purposes of this i’ll be focusing on the second one)…and it was by two teenaged guys. i find it absoutely chilling how, when they’re in a group, teenaged boys can rationalize what would normally be considered absolutely sick behavior. i’m not a guy, so i’m not clear on how they do it, but once they’re outside of the group they usually seem to be regain some semblance of sanity. i would imagine that had a lot to do with how public they made this. and while this is in ABSOLUTELY NO WAY an excuse, i have been shocked by how completely unaware a lot of guys (both teenaged and adult) i have spoken to that of how degrading, dehumanizing, and humiliating rape is. they simply can’t comprehend how much it violates not just your body, but your mind as well – and some of the guys i have talked with are not unempathetic assholes. they just simply can’t understand it, because it’s a position they have never been in.
    that being said, my heart aches for this girl. i was lucky in the sense that both of my assaults were relatively private – as opposed to this, where it seems like a lot of people witnessed some part or another of it. i can’t begin to understand how humiliated and worthless she must feel…because no matter how much you logically ‘know’ it wasn’t your fault, even if you were drunk, it still feels like it is. i wish i could envelop her in a huge hug and try to keep away some of this ugliness.
    it makes me so sad every time i read articles like these. and angry that me, or someone else, couldn’t protect her.

  • LiteBrite

    “She was treated like a toy.”

    I disagree. My guess would be these boys treat their actual toys better than they treated this girl.

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