Breitbart.com Blames Media For Conviction Of Rapists

[TruthOut10]

Guilty Verdict in Steubenville Rape Case that Saw Anonymous Terrorize a Town

A caravan of news satellite trucks parked outside the Justice Center in the small town of Steubenville, Ohio Sunday as Judge Thomas Lipp pronounced the verdict in the rape trial of two high school athletes that has become an internationally watched news story. Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, were found to be adjudicated delinquents. The equivalent in the Ohio juvenile justice system of being found guilty of raping a 16 year old girl after a night of drinking in August, 2012.



The verdict may end the trial but the impact on the residents of Steubenville will be felt for some time to come. In a bizarre story with a cast of characters that includes the New York Times, a fugitive anarchist and Roseanne Barr, massive media malpractice led to the Ohio town being terrorized in real life by elements of the hackivist group Anonymous. After the major mainstream media and left-wing blogosphere got the story completely wrong by spreading wild rumors that the trial revealed to be totally false, the self proclaimed media watchdogs are nowhere to be found.



The Steubenville rape case is a prime example of the mainstream press botching basic facts, violating all principles of fair reporting and getting away with it. The Steubenville story blew up last December with long piece in the New York Times that portrayed Steubenville as a football crazed town where local officials might be covering up a crime. The Times story was quickly followed by the involvement of Anonymous, who hacked into a local website and demanded vigilante justice against not just the suspects but against the entire town, especially anyone and everyone connected with Steubenville’s successful ‘Big Red’ high school football team.

Guilty Verdict in Steubenville Rape Case that Saw Anonymous Terrorize a Town

 

[TruthOut10]

So instead of blaming the victim this time around, we'll blame the "media"?

And your knuckle draggers call this legitimate news source?

 

[AmyNation]

There was a mountain of evidence. They admitted to the sexual contact. The only issue in dispute was if she was too drunk to consent and since the DA got many at the party to testify against the boys on that score, there was really never going to be anything but a guilty verdict.

 

[waltky]

Attorney General To Look Into Steubenville Case...

CNN criticized for Steubenville verdict coverage
18 Mar.`13 - CNN's coverage of the Steubenville, Ohio, rape verdict involving a pair of high-school football players is being harshly criticized for its focus on the rapists rather than the 16-year-old victim.

"I've never experienced anything like it," CNN correspondent Poppy Harlow said live outside the juvenile court in Steubenville. "It was incredibly emotional—incredibly difficult even for an outsider like me to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believe their life fell apart." Harlow continued: One of the young men, Ma'lik Richmond, when that sentence came down, he collapsed. He collapsed in the arms of his attorney, Walter Madison. He said to me, "My life is over. No one is going to want me now." Very serious crime here. Both found guilty of raping this 16-year-old girl at a series of parties back in August, alcohol-fueled parties. Alcohol is a huge part in this.

Ma'lik Richmond cries in juvenile court.

Both Richmond and Trent Mays, the other defendant, stood up and apologized to the victim and her family. Harlow described the scene to Candy Crowley. "I was sitting about three feet from Ma'lik when he gave that statement. It was very difficult to watch," Harlow said. "This was an incredibly emotional day. These two juveniles being carried out and they will be committed today, Candy." Crowley then discussed the case with CNN legal contributor Paul Callan. "You know, Paul, a 16 year old now just sobbing in court, regardless of what big football players they are, still sound like 16 year olds," Crowley said. "The thing is, when you listen to it and you realize that they could stay until they're 21, they are going to get credit for time served. What's the lasting effect, though, on two young men being found guilty in juvenile court of rape, essentially?"

Callan's answer: The most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law and, by the way, the laws in most other states now require such a designation in the face of such a serious crime. That will haunt them for the rest of their lives. At the end of the segment, Crowley and Harlow discussed the victim. CROWLEY: I want to bring Poppy back in—because, Poppy, there's—you know, the 16-year-old victim, her life, never the same, again. And I understand you have been talking to some of the families involved.

MORE

See also:

AG: Steubenville rape case not over
Mar 17, 2013 | Wants to investigate whether others broke laws with silence

Two members of Steubenville’s celebrated high school football team were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl, but Ohio’s attorney general warned the case isn’t over, saying he is investigating whether coaches, parents and other students broke the law too, in some instances simply by failing to speak up. Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’Lik Richmond, 16, were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile prison in a case that has rocked the Rust Belt city of 18,000 since this past summer and led to allegations of a cover-up to protect the Steubenville High School football team. Mays was ordered to serve an additional year for photographing the underage girl naked. They can be detained until they turn 21.

The two broke down in tears after a Juvenile Court judge delivered his verdict. They later apologized to the victim and the community. “My life is over,” he said as he collapsed in the arms of his lawyer. The crime, which took place after a party, shocked many people in Steubenville because of the seeming callousness with which other students took out their cellphones to record the attack and gossiped about it online. In fact, the case came to light via a barrage of morning-after text messages, social media posts and online photos and video. “Many of the things we learned during this trial that our children were saying and doing were profane, were ugly,” Judge Thomas Lipps said.

Immediately after the verdict, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said he will convene a grand jury in April to investigate whether anyone else should be charged. Noting that 16 people refused to talk, many of them underage, DeWine said possible offenses to be investigated include failure to report a crime. “This community desperately needs to have this behind them, but this community also desperately needs to know justice was done and that no stone was left unturned,” he said. Among the people who have been interviewed were the owners of one of the houses where parties took place that night, the high school principal, and the football team’s 27 coaches, many of them volunteers.

Text messages introduced at trial suggested the head coach was aware of the rape allegation early on. DeWine said coaches are among officials required by state law to report child abuse. The coach and the school district repeatedly have declined to comment. Mays and Richmond were charged with digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, first in the back seat of a moving car after a mostly underage drinking party on Aug. 11, and then in the basement of a house. “They treated her like a toy,” prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter said. Prosecutors argued that the victim was so intoxicated she couldn’t consent to sex that night, while the defense contended the girl realized what she was doing and was known to lie.

MORE

 

[TruthOut10]

Attorney General To Look Into Steubenville Case...

CNN criticized for Steubenville verdict coverage
18 Mar.`13 - CNN's coverage of the Steubenville, Ohio, rape verdict involving a pair of high-school football players is being harshly criticized for its focus on the rapists rather than the 16-year-old victim.

"I've never experienced anything like it," CNN correspondent Poppy Harlow said live outside the juvenile court in Steubenville. "It was incredibly emotional—incredibly difficult even for an outsider like me to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believe their life fell apart." Harlow continued: One of the young men, Ma'lik Richmond, when that sentence came down, he collapsed. He collapsed in the arms of his attorney, Walter Madison. He said to me, "My life is over. No one is going to want me now." Very serious crime here. Both found guilty of raping this 16-year-old girl at a series of parties back in August, alcohol-fueled parties. Alcohol is a huge part in this.

Ma'lik Richmond cries in juvenile court.

Both Richmond and Trent Mays, the other defendant, stood up and apologized to the victim and her family. Harlow described the scene to Candy Crowley. "I was sitting about three feet from Ma'lik when he gave that statement. It was very difficult to watch," Harlow said. "This was an incredibly emotional day. These two juveniles being carried out and they will be committed today, Candy." Crowley then discussed the case with CNN legal contributor Paul Callan. "You know, Paul, a 16 year old now just sobbing in court, regardless of what big football players they are, still sound like 16 year olds," Crowley said. "The thing is, when you listen to it and you realize that they could stay until they're 21, they are going to get credit for time served. What's the lasting effect, though, on two young men being found guilty in juvenile court of rape, essentially?"

Callan's answer: The most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law and, by the way, the laws in most other states now require such a designation in the face of such a serious crime. That will haunt them for the rest of their lives. At the end of the segment, Crowley and Harlow discussed the victim. CROWLEY: I want to bring Poppy back in—because, Poppy, there's—you know, the 16-year-old victim, her life, never the same, again. And I understand you have been talking to some of the families involved.

MORE

See also:

AG: Steubenville rape case not over
Mar 17, 2013 | Wants to investigate whether others broke laws with silence

Two members of Steubenville’s celebrated high school football team were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl, but Ohio’s attorney general warned the case isn’t over, saying he is investigating whether coaches, parents and other students broke the law too, in some instances simply by failing to speak up. Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’Lik Richmond, 16, were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile prison in a case that has rocked the Rust Belt city of 18,000 since this past summer and led to allegations of a cover-up to protect the Steubenville High School football team. Mays was ordered to serve an additional year for photographing the underage girl naked. They can be detained until they turn 21.

The two broke down in tears after a Juvenile Court judge delivered his verdict. They later apologized to the victim and the community. “My life is over,” he said as he collapsed in the arms of his lawyer. The crime, which took place after a party, shocked many people in Steubenville because of the seeming callousness with which other students took out their cellphones to record the attack and gossiped about it online. In fact, the case came to light via a barrage of morning-after text messages, social media posts and online photos and video. “Many of the things we learned during this trial that our children were saying and doing were profane, were ugly,” Judge Thomas Lipps said.

Immediately after the verdict, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said he will convene a grand jury in April to investigate whether anyone else should be charged. Noting that 16 people refused to talk, many of them underage, DeWine said possible offenses to be investigated include failure to report a crime. “This community desperately needs to have this behind them, but this community also desperately needs to know justice was done and that no stone was left unturned,” he said. Among the people who have been interviewed were the owners of one of the houses where parties took place that night, the high school principal, and the football team’s 27 coaches, many of them volunteers.

Text messages introduced at trial suggested the head coach was aware of the rape allegation early on. DeWine said coaches are among officials required by state law to report child abuse. The coach and the school district repeatedly have declined to comment. Mays and Richmond were charged with digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, first in the back seat of a moving car after a mostly underage drinking party on Aug. 11, and then in the basement of a house. “They treated her like a toy,” prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter said. Prosecutors argued that the victim was so intoxicated she couldn’t consent to sex that night, while the defense contended the girl realized what she was doing and was known to lie.

MORE

1. Seen the initial CNN thread http://www.usmessageboard.com/media...eporting-of-steuben-rapists-ruined-lives.html and it you could've repeated the same thing that has already been reported.

2. So your point is what exactly?

 

[MarcATL]

Who agrees with that nutjob?

And if he's so wrong about something as crucial and fundamental as this, what about every other nonsense he spews?

Speak up.

 

[tinydancer]

Guilty Verdict in Steubenville Rape Case that Saw Anonymous Terrorize a Town

A caravan of news satellite trucks parked outside the Justice Center in the small town of Steubenville, Ohio Sunday as Judge Thomas Lipp pronounced the verdict in the rape trial of two high school athletes that has become an internationally watched news story. Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, were found to be adjudicated delinquents. The equivalent in the Ohio juvenile justice system of being found guilty of raping a 16 year old girl after a night of drinking in August, 2012.



The verdict may end the trial but the impact on the residents of Steubenville will be felt for some time to come. In a bizarre story with a cast of characters that includes the New York Times, a fugitive anarchist and Roseanne Barr, massive media malpractice led to the Ohio town being terrorized in real life by elements of the hackivist group Anonymous. After the major mainstream media and left-wing blogosphere got the story completely wrong by spreading wild rumors that the trial revealed to be totally false, the self proclaimed media watchdogs are nowhere to be found.



The Steubenville rape case is a prime example of the mainstream press botching basic facts, violating all principles of fair reporting and getting away with it. The Steubenville story blew up last December with long piece in the New York Times that portrayed Steubenville as a football crazed town where local officials might be covering up a crime. The Times story was quickly followed by the involvement of Anonymous, who hacked into a local website and demanded vigilante justice against not just the suspects but against the entire town, especially anyone and everyone connected with Steubenville’s successful ‘Big Red’ high school football team.

Guilty Verdict in Steubenville Rape Case that Saw Anonymous Terrorize a Town

You didn't read the whole article.

Here is the key part. The Assistant Prosecutor blames Anonymous. Brietbart calls the media fool hardy, idiots for not double checking but the key blame is Anonymous.

Breitbart News spoke exclusively to Frank Bruzzese, an assistant prosecutor for Jefferson County, Ohio who assisted in the early stage of the investigation.

Bruzzese says that when Anonymous became involved in the story in they created an vigilante atmosphere that had dire consequences for both the case and the people of Steubenville.

“The internet lynch mob did damage to their own stated goal of helping the victim by putting her in an international spotlight that only served to humiliate her.

Anonymous claimed to want justice but their threats had the opposite effect; by calling for the scalps of eyewitnesses and other completely innocent people, the result was a hampered prosecution where people were afraid to testify and where the judge was forced to grant three witnesses immunity.”

Anonymous promoted a pack of rumors that spread like wildfire on the internet, involving complex conspiracies involving what they termed ‘a brutal gang rape’ in Steubenville.

Bruzzese says “For months now, I’ve watched the internet lynch mob spin a tale from nothing.

They sold the media a story where an girl was drugged, carried from party to party in the trunk of a car, photographed by dozens of party goers as she was raped at series of parties, urinated on and finally dumped on the front lawn of her parent’s house. The trial showed that none of that was true.”

Do you understand that now? It plainly says in this article that Anonymous promoted a pack of lies that the media fell for.

Have you got that?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journa...Rape-Case-That-Saw-Anonymous-Terrorize-A-Town

 

[tinydancer]

Let's go further into the actual article. I read the whole thing. You just wanted to trash Brietbart. The main focus is Anonymous. Brietbart is calling the media stupid.

The main sources for many of these stories is a site called LocalLeaks run by FBI fugitive and infamous Anonymous hacker Christopher Doyon, who uses the handle Commander X. In this video interview on Democracy Now!, Doyon claimed public credit for the LocalLeaks site.

Despite being full of undocumented and bizarre claims, unverified rumors and poorly written falsehoods, most media sources freely linked to the site and helped the the story go viral in early January.

For example, CNN put the website’s URL up on the screen repeatedly during video segments on the story essentially giving a site run by a criminal hacker hundreds of thousands of dollars in free advertising and giving credibility to the site.

Once again blaming the hackers, just calling CNN stupid.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journa...Rape-Case-That-Saw-Anonymous-Terrorize-A-Town

 

[tinydancer]

Again blaming the hackers. Quoting the Assistant Prosecutor. Not making it up themselves.

It was a remarkable and frightening example of how Anonymous can have devastating impact beyond the computer screen and in real life. Steubenville was under siege as websites and voicemails were hacked and townspeople faced a wave of protests, threats and harassment. At one point, a demonstration of about a thousand mask-wearing protestors invaded Steubenville, ginned up over the false story spread by Anonymous and the media.

Bruzzese says “Everyone from witnesses to law enforcement to high school kids were subjected to threats in every form you can imagine.

We’ve gotten mail from people who said biker gangs were going to come to Steubenville to rape our daughters. We’ve had email threats saying that people should put a gun in their mouth and if they didn’t, then someone would come to finish the job.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journa...Rape-Case-That-Saw-Anonymous-Terrorize-A-Town

 

[AmyNation]

We will never know if this would have even amounted in an arrest without anonymous. Anonymous was the one collecting much of the evidence as people started deleting what they had posted on social media sites.

 

[tinydancer]

We will never know if this would have even amounted in an arrest without anonymous. Anonymous was the one collecting much of the evidence as people started deleting what they had posted on social media sites.

It's not a matter of whether or not we agree with internet vigilante harassment or justice. Not at all.

It's just that the OP's title is completely misleading.

And the poster's purpose.....

So instead of blaming the victim this time around, we'll blame the "media"?

And your knuckle draggers call this legitimate news source?

 

[AmyNation]

Lets go over some of what Briebert is claiming were lies spun by anonymous.

"The victim was drugged- well, the victim claimed she was drugged, she said she felt like she had been.

"Photographed by dozens of party goers"- we know she was photographed by several and more may come out after a grand jury inquiry.

"Urnited on"- well, we know there was talk about peeing on her, that came out in court. As well as the fact that one of the boys was offering money as a dare for people to pee on her.

 

[tinydancer]

Lets go over some of what Briebert is claiming were lies spun by anonymous.

"The victim was drugged- well, the victim claimed she was drugged, she said she felt like she had been.

"Photographed by dozens of party goers"- we know she was photographed by several and more may come out after a grand jury inquiry.

"Urnited on"- well, we know there was talk about peeing on her, that came out in court. As well as the fact that one of the boys was offering money as a dare for people to pee on her.

Amy with all due respect, they are quoting the Assistant Prosecutor. Think about it. The Assistant Prosecutor.

Not a defense attorney.

Bruzzese says “For months now, I’ve watched the internet lynch mob spin a tale from nothing. They sold the media a story where an girl was drugged, carried from party to party in the trunk of a car, photographed by dozens of party goers as she was raped at series of parties, urinated on and finally dumped on the front lawn of her parent’s house. The trial showed that none of that was true.”

Brietbart only prefaced their statement with this.

Anonymous promoted a pack of rumors that spread like wildfire on the internet, involving complex conspiracies involving what they termed ‘a brutal gang rape’ in Steubenville.

 

[Political Junky]

Consult Aiken as to whether it was a "legitimate" rape.