(CNN) -- Four teenage boys in Tampa, Florida, were charged as adults Wednesday on allegations of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy.
Charged with four counts each of sexual battery were Randall John Moye, 14; Raymond A. Price-Murray, 14; Lee Louis Myers, 14; and Diamante J. Roberts, 15. CNN is naming the defendants because they were charged as adults.
Hillsborough County prosecutors allege the four boys raped the 13-year-old victim multiple times over two months with a broomstick and hockey stick.
At a bond and arraignment hearing, the defendants appeared before Hillsborough County Judge Wayne Timmerman to hear the counts against them read in court.
Prosecutor Kimberly Hindman described to the court how two defendants held down the victim while the other two defendants violently sodomized him with the sticks. "The victim screamed and cried, telling them to stop," Hindman said.
The prosecutor said the victim's screams could be heard outside the boys' locker room at Walker Middle School, in southern Tampa, where the alleged assaults took place.
Multiple people witnessed the attacks, but no one reported the incidents, including the victim, Hindman said.
The school began an investigation after a fight that began on the football field and continued until a coach broke it up in the locker room, said the prosecutor. During the fight, the victim said, "I'm tired of them getting on me," Hindman said.
When school officials questioned the defendants, all four admitted in a written statement that they had sexually assaulted the victim.
The defendants "all implicated themselves in a sexual-battery incident," Hindman said.
The victim did not acknowledge the attacks until questioned. School officials contacted authorities, who initially charged the four as minors with sexual assault and false imprisonment.
Several students witnessed the incidents over the two months, said the prosecutor, who added that she could not understand why no one reported the attacks.
The victim made a statement in court, telling the judge how his father was angry and his mother couldn't stop crying when they heard about the attacks.
Defense attorneys told the judge their clients were good students and had never been in trouble before. Attorney Tim Taylor, representing Randall Moye, said his client's family is among the finest in the community.
Taylor presented six character witnesses, including his client's mother, Jeanne Myers, who said her son wants to attend college. The prosecutor asked her about her son's written statement about the attacks. Myers said her son described clowning around in the locker room with a hockey stick. She added that he told her about holding down the victim for a few seconds.
The victim finished the academic year at home instead of returning to school, authorities said.
The judge set bond for each defendant at $15,000, with ankle monitors for all but one, who has left the area. The four boys were taken into custody in court and booked into the adult jail. The judge warned the four to have no contact with one another, the victim or any witnesses in the case.
The defendants could spend up to 120 years in prison if convicted on all four counts.
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6 comments:
They need to make an example out of these boys!!! This is the whole reason we have school shootings. This type of behavior is totally unacceptable. Bullying and assault is out of control in our schools!!
Please throw the book at these kids!!!
This is totally unacceptable behavior!!!
If you want to stop the school shootings then throw the book at these kids as they are the reasons that the kids that are assaulted and bullied get to a breaking point and snap.
Please throw the book at these kids, we need to set an example.
It doesn't speak very well of the Tampa area or of the community if one of the accused is "from one of the finest in the community" nor that no one who witnessed the attacks came forward prior to the fight, which came about only after the victim resolved to stop the brutality and wretchedness of these assaults. That this type of incident could occur in a school locker room is reprehensible, that no one did anything is downright senseless and cold. One can only hope that the judge does inflict on the accused a proper and meaningful sentence, and if remanded to a state penal institution, the accused will themselves more than likely face the probability of receiving the same treatment that they so willingly administered on the victim. To the victim I hope for you and your family a healing that starts within, to stay strong, and know that there are people out there that stand with you as you seek justice for the crime.
Oh i am pretty sure once they end up in prison they're going to be the "receiving end" of sodomy. There is one thing you do not want to be when you go to prison....a rapist or a child molester. As soon as inmates find out you're one, they make it their business to get payback on you. I'm not saying this behavior is ok but these kids acted like animals and unfortunately now they'll be among their own kind where anything goes. Good riddance, who cares if they come from the finest families in the city. its obvious those fine parents raised a monster of child and now he's going to receive his come-uppins, pun intended.
I'm so OUTRAGED at this! I don't care if any of the accused teens were from good families or had good grade, that didn't give them the brains or the heart to know NOT to do such a heinous crime. And what about those kids who witnessed this? Where were they?!? What if it happened to them or their brother/sister/friend? Why didn't they do anything? Doesn't this make them complicit? What are we teaching these kids? What kind of heartless being are we breeding? I am so heartbroken for this victim and his family. Parents, this should be your wake-up call. This victim could be your child or, God forbid, the accused could be your kid. This is a teach-able moment, talk to your kids about this. And if they witness something like this,DO SOMETHING don't let it continue.
I keep holding my baby close and hope this never happens to him. I can't stop crying and aching over this. All this being said, I think these accused teens should be punished, but I'm not sure sending them to an adult prison is the right thing to do. They are kids, stupid, f***ed up kids. If you put them in prison w/ adults, you might as well give them a death sentence.
good students.....From HELL
What these Animals did is a heinous crime an should be tormented in prison for the rest of there LIFE with no parole. Dont forget what one they there blood sucking attorney had to say.
Defense attorneys told the judge their clients were good students and had never been in trouble before. Attorney Tim Taylor, representing Randall Moye, said his client's family is among the finest in the community. Maybe this attorney needs to feel what the victim felt up his a--.
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