Youngstown News
DeWine takes evidence in Steubenville case to next level
Wed, March 20, 2013 

The state attorney general’s office would not normally become involved in prosecuting a rape case in juvenile court. But the case involving the assault of a 16-year-old West Virginia girl by two Steubenville football players stopped being a normal case within hours of the crime. 

An image of an apparently unconscious girl being carried hand-and-foot by the boys accused of raping her became an electronic trading card. A sickening video of a boy not involved in the rape making lame jokes about how drunk and how “raped” she was went viral. 

Suddenly social media transformed an ugly case that could have been handled by any competent assistant prosecutor into a national and even international cause. 

The publicity spurred accusations that officials in Steubenville had not responded adequately to the attack because the young men were football players in a town where football is king. 

The case took on a life that required more than local police and prosecutors could give, and so the office of Attorney General Mike DeWine was called in. His Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s cyber-crimes division inspected 13 phones and two iPads. Investigators reviewed and analyzed 396,270 text messages, 308,586 photos/pictures, 940 video clips and 3,188 phone calls. That evidence and testimony from three witnesses who were given immunity, was more than enough to support a finding of delinquency against Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’Lik Richmond, 16. Each was sentenced to at least a year in a juvenile treatment center on the rape charges and Mays was sentenced to an additional year on a charge of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material. They could be held until they’re 21. 

But the case isn’t over. In addition to the cyber evidence, investigators interviewed almost 60 people, including 27 who were at one of two parties on the night of the rape, as well as the superintendent, principal and 27 football coaches at Steubenville High School. Sixteen of the people who attended the parties refused to cooperate. 

Read the rest of the article at the Youngstown News