Audrie Pott Suicide Update: Alleged rape victim's school newspaper reports her photos never went "viral"
(CBS) - Students at the high school attended by Audrie Pott told the campus newspaper over the weekend that a photo from the night of Pott's alleged rape did not go "viral," but rather was seen by an estimated 10 people.
The Saratoga High School Falcon has been covering the "media blitz" that descended on the Northern California school last week when news broke that two students had been arrested for sexual battery against Pott. According to the paper, two unnamed male students said the only people who saw the picture in question were at the party where the alleged rape occurred.
"The media said the pictures were all over," one student told the Falcon. "That's not true."
The student was identified as someone who was friends with Pott and two of the boys accused of raping her.
On Friday, CBS News'Crimesiderand other media outlets reported that photos of Pott were distributed electronically in the days after a party where she was allegedly raped by three boys she considered friends.
According to the Associated Press, Robert Allard, the attorney hired by Pott's family, said that Pott had been passed out from drinking during the alleged incident and determined what had happened to her in part because she saw a photo from the evening online. She committed suicide eight days later. Allard did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
But the Falcon reports that some students say the photos were never posted on Facebook, and that the newspaper interviewed more than two dozen students and none had seen the photo.
"I was really close friends with Audrie, and I haven't even seen it," student Catherine Tang told the newspaper. "I know it was not all over Facebook and viral like how the news is saying. I know that it wasn't that the whole school knew about it."
