Reuters/Jason Cohn Harding Stadium, home of the Steubenville High School Big Red football team. |
Steubenville,
Ohio may finally slink out of the spotlight, after two of the town's high school football players were
convicted of raping a 16-year-old with their fingers.
Trenton Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, were adjudicated delinquent and could be in a juvenile detention facility until they turn 21.
The rape case drew national attention after the accused and their friends joked about the incident and showed a galling sense of impunity over social media. In January Steubenville was forced to launch a website to combat the perception that "the football team runs this city."
At one point Mays told a friend that coach Reno Saccoccia would make the charges go away: "I got Reno ... He took care of it and s--- ain't gonna happen, even if they did take it to court."
That's the kind of mindset that develops in a depressed Appalachian town where Big Red Football is the hottest thing around.