Cross-Posted at Shadowscope.
As a crime blogger I’ve had various people threaten to sue me from time to time. Most of them are horseshit and the closest thing to any type of legal action I’ve received are a couple of cease and desist letters which I have chosen to ignore.
Thanks to Morbid over at The Dreamin’ Demon I came across this story from a couple of days ago. Apparently a lawsuit has been filed against Alexandria Goddard of Columbus, Ohio. Goddard runs a site called Prinniefied.com. Prinniefied is a crime blog I haven’t been to before but follows the same generic theme that most of us as crime bloggers do, facts about the crime, links to related stories and sources and a bit of opinion on each. Sound familiar? Hell, Alexandria Goddard claims to be opinionated but from what I’ve seen she’s pretty tame but well-written) in her stories. You’ll find a lot of real information and facts but nothing about douchebags and skags, at least not in the headlines.
Now that I’ve rambled on and on here’s the story. A girl was raped by at least two football players in Steubenville, Ohio and the act was photographed and/or filmed by several other teens at the scene of the crime. Did they try and stop the two fucknuts? Hell, no. Did they report the heinous act? What do you think? What they DID do was post about it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The parents bringing the law suit against Goddard are James and Johna Saltsman, whose son posted this pic which I blatantly stole (removed due to the fact that I shouldn’t have posted it in the first place) from Prinniefied and edited.
The lawsuit also names 15 other people as defendants using the fictitious names they used on her site, According to the story I linked to above,
Blake (the attorney representing the Saltsmans’) in his lawsuit is seeking an injunction to prevent Goddard and the other as yet unknown defendants from disseminating any false and defamatory statements regarding the Saltsman’s. The lawsuit wants Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge David Henderson, who was assigned the case, to issue an order for defendants to remove the alleged false and defamatory statements regarding the Saltsman’s from the Internet.
Some of the other tweets and comments by participants?
Party at [redacted]!!!! Huge party!!! Banger!!!!
It has to suck to be that sloppy drunk girl everyone’s tweeting about right now #embarrassing
Who’s this sloppy drunk bitch #JusWannaKnow
You don’t sleep through a wang in the butthole
Finally saw a dead body #woah
There is a dead body in the ville and people don’t care #livethelife
I don’t want to leave her now, you know I believe and how #Something
Some people deserve to be peed on #whoareyou
was saying some some bangers last night, i.e “like I always say, you don’t need much foreplay with a dead girl”
Some of the tweeters referred to the drunk victim as the “dead body”. The great majority of the videos and tweets have now been deleted. Fortunately law enforcement SHOULD be able to recover them from YouTube if they wish. When videos are deleted from YouTube they aren’t really deleted, at least not right away.
The two football players for Big Red were initially arrested in August and charged with Rape and Kidnapping. The kidnapping charge was dropped and it’s now being reported that the two have been released from the detention facility and will be charged as juveniles, which is why I haven’t posted their names. What does matter is the bad parenting involved as well as a lot of bad leadership in the school and local legal system.
Judge Tom Lipps Explains Criteria for Juveniles to be bound to adult court
The two boys will be electronically monitored and are not allowed to go back to their school, instead having to attend alternative school. They are only allowed to go to public places if their parents are taking them. They also cannot have any type of contact with the victim or any potential witnesses in the case. A pre-trial hearing has been set for mid-December. During the hearing at which the above was decided the victim’s mother was called and testified on what her daughter has had to go through. The defense also called character witnesses for one of the two teenagers including football coaches and a guardian who testified about academic records and other awards the teen had one. Considering that most of the tweets and other incriminating photos were by members of the football team the fact that his coaches testified is pretty damned suspect.
And oh by the way, here’s something else I found interesting. One of the “boys” who testified was 18-year-old Anthony Craig. Anthony took a picture of the rape “in case the victim didn’t know what was happening”. The he deleted the picture.
Anthony Craig, 18, said he could see the victim getting more drunk throughout the night.
“Just the way she handled herself and was walking and talking to people,” Craig said.
He said he went to Cole’s house where Cole showed him a video of what happened in Cole’s car.
Craig, who admitted to having a relationship with the victim, said he saw the victim naked in Cole’s basement. He said he saw Richmond laying beside her but couldn’t tell what Richmond was doing. He said Mays was smacking his penis off her side.
Craig said the victim was not responsive or participating.
Craig said he tried to tell Mays, his best friend, to stop it, and told him not to do anything he will regret.
Craig said Mays told him, “It is all right … don’t worry.”
When asked how it feels to testify against his friend, Craig said. “It kills me.”
Craig said he took a picture of the incident in case the victim didn’t know what was happening. He said he later deleted the picture from his cell phone.
Craig testified Mays sent him a naked picture of the victim the next day.
So why isn’t Craig (an adult) being charged with the Manufacture of Child Pornography?
According to the Herald Star,
City Police juvenile detective Jean-Philippe Rigaud said the victim couldn’t say if she was raped because she couldn’t remember what happened. The detective said there was no photo or video retrieved that showed Mays conducting a sexual act.
WTF?
There is a charge against one of the boys of Illegal Use of a Minor in Nudity-Oriented Material but that’s it as far as I’ve been able to ascertain.
I’m sure to post more on this at a later date. Forgive me creating a jumble that doesn’t make much sense. I’ve been doing a bit of reading on the case all morning and writing it up at the same time and I am very angry about it.
As always, if you have any information related to the case feel free to contact me or leave a comment.
Updated 11/3/12 – Apparently Prinniefied has had not one but TWO Twitter accounts suspended, most likely due to complaints from the plaintiff’s attorney in the lawsuit (I am just assuming here). WTF is up with that?
Updated 11/5/12 – As loathe as I am to defend ANY of the douchebags involved in the incident I do have a couple of things to say. First off the kids who posted the videos and Instagram pics (like the one above)… They should be charged with the production of child pornography or sexting or something of the sort. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear as if that is going to happen. They do need to pay for their CRIMES which is exactly what they are but as far as I’m concerned sending bullying posts and tweets straight to their account are:
1. CHILDISH
2. FUCKING STUPID.
Sending tweets to their account about what douchebags they are? Really? Grow the fuck up and act like an adult. I will tell you one thing, I have no problem naming adults involved in it as I did with Anthony Craig. He’s 18 and while he’s probably not much more adult than the other kids LEGALLY he is. The Saltsman’s kid? Nope, he’s a minor.
I’ll retweet all day long about the first amendment and how the pending lawsuit against Alexandria Goddard is wrong but sending bullying tweets to the CHILD of the parents who are suing her? No, I don’t think so and if you are one of the ones involved in that then go fuck yourself. You’re not welcome here and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Updated 11/6/12 – I saw it mentioned over at the Stinky Pamper (I do love the name!) how actually posting the photo of the victim being carried might constitute harassment I don’t know about that but after I thought about it I realized it was just pretty bad manners so I’ve deleted it. While the post wasn’t directed toward this site they certainly had a good point. Thanks!
Sources:
http://www.hsconnect.com/page/content.detail/id/579636/Suit-filed-against-site-operator.html?nav=5010
http://www.wtrf.com/story/19972589/steubenville-teens-charged-with-rape-could-find-out-if-they-will-be-tried-as-adults
http://prinniefied.com/wp/we-didnt-know-or-think-that-what-we-were-doing-was-wrong/#more-1106
http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/576728/Rape-Case-Stays–In-Juvenile-Court.html?nav=515
https://twitter.com/WalterMadison
https://twitter.com/prinniedidit
http://prinniefied.com/wp/hello-cleveland/
http://hsconnect.com/page/content.detail/id/578936/Teen-rape-case-moves-forward.html?nav=5010
