Steubenville Defendant Texted That His Coach 'Took Care of' Rape Allegations
LatestA day after text messages were introduced in the Steubenville rape trial, three teenage witnesses (each of them current and former Steubenville students) are expected to provide key testimony in the trial of two high school football players accused of raping a 16-year-old girl in August.
Thursday’s installment of the Steubenville trial (which Special Judge Thomas Lipps is hearing without a jury) centered on the spiderweb of conflicting text messages sent last August after the alleged rape. According to a recap in the New York Times, texts from Trent Mays, the 17-year-old Steubenville quarterback who stands accused with fellow football player Ma’Lik Richmond, 16, of digitally penetrating a 16-year-old girl in back of a moving car and again in the basement of a house, included Mays’ admission that he digitally penetrated the girl. (Mays has also been charged with the illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.) The two have maintained their innocence.
In other texts, however, Mays tells his friends that he and the girl engaged in another (mutual) sex act. The flurry of messages that Mays sent from his phone in the wake of the alleged rape seem to hedge around a full admission. Prosecutors introduced one text, for example, in which Mays tells the girl’s father (probably one of the worst nightmare confrontations for any parent is interacting in any way with your child’s alleged rapist) “this is all a big misunderstanding.” Another series of texts Mays sent to his friends reveal that he’d been concerned about Steubenville football coach Reno Saccoccia’s response to the event until the coach, according to Mays’ texts, apparently gave him some reassuring news.
Saccoccia, reads one of Mays’ text that prosecutors introduced Thursday, “took care of it.” In another text, Mays adds, “Like, he was joking about it so I’m not worried.”