What was in abundance was alcohol, according to Ma'lik and several of the attendees. By some estimates, there were as many as 40 to 50 teenagers there and no adults. When Trent and Ma'lik arrived, the narrow street outside the house of the party was crammed with cars.
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She was from just over the Ohio River in Weirton, W.Va., and, his lawyer says, persuaded him to come to a party where she was with several girlfriends. Hours after the game, Trent, still relishing his role in Big Red's win, was receiving text messages from a girl he had been flirting with over social media, according to his lawyer. For the players, it was an excuse to party. For the faithful who filled the stands, it was tempting to fantasize about winning a 10th state championship.
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That night, Trent and Ma'lik helped propel Big Red to victory. He had turned to sports early in life as an escape from the realities around him. His earliest memories involve dodging stray bullets in his living room and watching most of his male role models being killed or incarcerated. Ma'lik came from the rougher side of Steubenville. Ever since he could remember, he shared a dream that so many boys in this corner of the Ohio Valley do to one day hear the roar of Big Red fans from the field.Ī favorite target for Trent that night was wide receiver Ma'lik Richmond. With a football coach for a father, Trent had the sport in his DNA. Trent Mays was a quarterback and honors student from a town 15 minutes outside of Steubenville. 11, 2012, Big Red ran a scrimmage to show off the team's newest talent. Now, documents and photographs obtained exclusively by "20/20," along with never-before-seen taped police interviews with many of the teenage party goers, are shedding light on many of the facts of the case for the first time. The uproar surrounding the case soon split the town into two furious camps one that firmly believes there's a conspiracy to cover up a "rape culture" among the football team, and the other believing that the town's once-stellar reputation is being unfairly tarnished by outsiders who don't know all the facts.
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The news soon spread beyond Steubenville, leading both hacker-activists and women's advocacy groups to blow the lid off the story nationally, questioning why people who knew about the allegations weren't also charged under an Ohio law requiring people to report crimes of which they're aware.
The ville steubenville ohio full#
See the full story on ABC's "20/20" Friday, March 22, at 10 p.m. In reality, prosecutors contend that Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'lik Richmond, 16, used their hands to penetrate her while she was too drunk to consent, By Ohio law, such a crime constitutes rape, as it does in many places.Īt least three other Steubenville students say they witnessed the alleged encounters, and still others heard about them and posted messages, photographs and videos about the incident on social media sites. The social media frenzy took on a life of its own, with reports going as far as calling the incident a "gang-rape" of an unconscious girl. Just as the season was gearing up late last summer, two Big Red football players were accused of participating in the rape of a 16-year-old intoxicated girl with friends documenting the alleged crime through cellphone pictures and video. Steubenville Launches Website on Alleged Teen Rape But this past season, the team's second-round playoff defeat was overshadowed by a very different firestorm that engulfed the team and the entire town. And residents here worship on Friday nights.Įvery time Big Red scores, a sculpture of a stallion named Man O' War breathes a 6-foot stream of fire into the night sky over Harding Stadium. Steubenville is a place where football is more than just a past time it's a religion.