STEUBENVILLE, Ohio, March 17 (UPI) -- A judge found two Steubenville, Ohio, teens guilty of raping an allegedly drunk 16-year-old girl and sentenced them Sunday to at least one year in jail each.
Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'lik Richmond, 16, were found delinquent -- the juvenile equivalent of guilty -- by Judge Thomas Lipps after four days of testimony The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported.
Both teens were sentenced to a minimum of one year in jail, WKYC-TV, Cleveland reported. Mays was sentenced to an additional year for possessing a nude photograph of the victim.
Witnesses testified the two football players digitally penetrated the girl, which constitutes rape in the state of Ohio. The girl, whose name was not reported, testified she was intoxicated at the time of the incident, calling into question her ability to understand what was happening and to consent, CNN reported.
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Much of the four-day trial focused on explicit text messages sent between the victim and the defendants, and the defendants and others, as well cellphone pictures and videos and social media posts surrounding the sexual abuse of the girl.
Mays and Richmond will likely undergo evaluation to determine their risk level, which could help classify them into a sexual offender registration tier.
The two teens face the possibility of being jailed until they are 21 years old.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Mike DeWine said Sunday a grand jury will be convened to determine if any of the other party-goers should be charged for the incident, WKYC reported.
Authorities determined 43 people were at one or both parties where the assaults happened, and 16 of those people have refused to answer police questions, DeWine said.
The attorney general said more needs to be done to educate the nation's young people about sex and rape.
"Crime likes this happen every single weekend in this country. Steubenville is not the exception. ... We still have an ignorance, from people about the fact that these events happen all the time," he said.
