Maryland High School Football Gang Rape Shocks Prosecutors

Details

Category: Crime

Published on Tuesday, 27 November 2018 07:43

Written by Janet Walker

Four Junior Varsity football players were arraigned as adults and charged with multiple counts of sexual battery, rape and violence following what prosecutors are calling an "astonishingly cruel" locker room gang rape at Damascus High School.

The teens, all 15, Jean Claude Abedi, Kristian Jamal Lee, Will Smith, and Caleb Thorpe all planned and maliciously with depraved indifference to human life executed a gang rape of four freshmen, all 14, and fellow JV football team members in the boys's locker room at the high school.

"Astonishingly cruel," Montgomery County Deputy State's Attorney Peter Feeney said of the shocking violence allegedly committed by the four JV players, who allegedly indicated the hazing was tradition at the Montgomery County Maryland high school.

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"The attackers went from one victim to the next. At least two of the attackers could be heard laughing and two of the victims could be heard screaming. Each defendant played a significant role in carrying out their plan to sexually assault the victims in this case whether it was pushing, punching, stomping, holding down, tackling and wielding the broom. The crimes could only be committed with the active participation of each defendant, Feeney said." The Washington Post reported.

The account of the crime, which attests to a severe breakdown in society and clearly an inflated belief of invincibility, indicates the four freshmen were intentionally misled by false statements from the four Varsity players of something most likely an ambiguous statement, "something big is going to happen and you're going to be part of it" which drew them all to the crime scene.

The charges against the four named defendants have been amended several times sine the crime was reported on October 31, the defendants now all face one count of First Degree Rape, three counts of attempted first degree rape and one count of conspiracy. Charges against an unnamed fifth defendant have yet to be made public. 

Prosecutors had asked Judge John C. Moffet to hold the four without bail due to the shocking nature of the crime. The judge indicated, singularly "the defendants do not represent a flight risk or a substantial risk tot he public and ordered the bond set st $20,000."

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Defense attorneys for the accused have already initiated PR campaigns to change the public's perception of their clients. Peer pressure and psychological aspects of mob or gang mentality have been introduced as well as the accused's academic and societal achievements as all are honor roll student, active in community endeavors and contributing members of their local school and surrounding communities. 

Maryland law makes provision for mandatory life sentences when sex crimes include more than one person, a weapon or penetration with body parts or objects. The four face life in prison. 

This is a developing story.