STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – Text messages introduced Thursday in the rape trial of two high school football players provided differing accounts of what happened between them and a 16-year-old girl: One from a defendant described mutual sex, while another from the girl said she remembered leaving a party with the players but nothing after that.
The flurry of text messages sent around the eastern Ohio city of Steubenville after the alleged rape last year were presented as evidence on the second day of the trial before Special Judge Thomas Lipps, who is hearing the case without a jury.
“Swear to God I don’t remember doing anything with them,” the girl wrote to a friend, a boy who authorities say saw the assaults. “I wasn’t being a slut. They were taking advantage of me.”
Ma’Lik Richmond, 16, and Trent Mays, 17, are charged with digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, first in the back seat of a moving car after a party Aug. 11 and then in the basement of a house. Mays also is charged with illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material. The two maintain their innocence.
Prosecutors insist the girl was too drunk to consent to sex, while defense attorneys have portrayed her as someone who was intoxicated but still in control of her actions.