An intoxicated girl at a Steubenville party. Photograph courtesy of Anonymous
The alleged drugging and gang rape of a 16 year old girl by leading players from the Steubenville High school american football team, and the rumoured cover up has divided the population of the Ohio town.
On 27th August 2012, two members of the Steubenville High school american football team were arrested and charged with the kidnapping and rape of a 16 year old girl, an act that took place on August 11th. The two defendants are alleged to have given the girl a “date rape drug” and then taken her unconscious to a number of local parties where she was photographed, videoed, and raped, with other students allegedly involved as well.
In fact, the victim was so disorientated, whether as a result of a date rape drug or alcohol intoxication, that she did not know the extent of the assault perpetrated upon her until the next day when she saw photos of herself on Instagram, videos on YouTube, and lurid messages posted about her on twitter, with the local paper carrying the story.
With so many people apparently witnesses to these crimes, all students with phones and cameras to record the events, it is strange that none of this evidence was produced in an attempt to identify any others involved in the assault. The county Sheriff, Fred Abdalla, apparently collected these electronics but the images and video were not released, with some apparently “accidentally deleted”. This had led to allegations of collusion between the police and the school sports coaches in an attempt to cover up the extent of the crime in the name of “football”. The football coach did not even “bench” the two defendants after the allegations were made as he said “they didn’t think they had done anything wrong”.
The accusations of corruption go deeper to, as the Prosecuting Attorney for Jefferson County, Jane Halin, is the mother of another member of this self-described “Rape Crew” from the school, although he is not implicated in these crimes directly. Indeed, there are some allegations that the crime actually took place at Halin’s house.
Moreover, whilst some high profile members of the town’s society are alleged to be covering up the scandal, other people are accusing the victim of concocting the entire story in order to placate her parents, with others describing her as “Steubenville’s train whore”, blaming her for the assault. The victim and her family are apparently in police protection due to threats received after the crime was publicised.
The alleged cover up was not heavily reported in the media, but members of the hacking collective Anonymous going under the name KnightSec have taken it upon themselves to shed some light on the situation and produce the supposedly “lost” evidence – and this is the only reason we are hearing about this story now. The group released photographs and email correspondence hacked from the accounts of those allegedly involved in the scandal, putting the information online on a WikiLeaks-inspired Local Leaks website. The most damning and depressing evidence, however, was a video (below) showing another member of the “Rape Crew”, Michael Nodianos, laughing and joking about the assault on the victim where he jokes about her being dead and raping her.
