Richmond High Gang-Rape: Six Male Defendants Ordered to Stand Trial for Calif. Homecoming Sex Assault
MARTINEZ, Calif. (CBS/AP) A Contra Costa County judge ordered fi ve men and one teenage boy to stand trial on felony charges in connection with a gang-rape of a teenage girl who was allegedly punched, kicked, sexually assaulted, and urinated on outside a Northern California high school homecoming dance.
However, Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Gregory Caskey dismissed charges against the seventh and youngest defendant, 16-year-old Cody Smith, due to insufficient evidence.
Caskey said the lead investigator in the case had interrogated Smith in violation of his Miranda rights two days after the Oct. 24, 2009 incident, which occurred in a dimly lit courtyard at Richmond High School.
The judge also reduced charges against 23-year-old Elvis Torrentes, whose attorney argued that his client only had consensual contact with the victim. Torrentes now faces up to eight years in prison if convicted.
The other five defendants, Manuel Ortega, 20, of Richmond; John Crane, 44, of Richmond; Ari Abdallah Morales, 17, of San Pablo; Marcelles James Peter, 18, of Pinole; and Jose Carlos Montano, 19, of Richmond, have all pleaded not guilty and face possible life sentences if convicted.
The judge issued his decision after a 20-day preliminary hearing in which prosecutor Dara Cashman laid out evidence that numerous men and teen boys attacked the 16-year-old female over a span of two hours as spectators watched, reports The Contra Costa Times.
When authorities found the victim, she was partially clothed under a picnic table with a near-fatal blood alcohol level, and was suffering from a concussion, hypothermia, brain and facial swelling, and head-to-toe scrapes and bruises, says The Contra Costa Times.
"She was sexually assaulted and she was beaten and she was treated as if she wasn't even human," Cashman said.
Cashman says the case is one of the most difficult cases she has encountered in her 26 years of practicing law because most of the key witnesses, most of whom allegedly took part in the attack, are unreliable sources of information, says The Contra Costa Times.
During Cashman's closing arguments, she said, "It proves the old adage, 'If you have a murder in hell, you're not going to have angels.'"