US teen sex attackers get weeks in detention

Victim committed suicide after three boys attacked her and then circulated photographs of assault to school friends.

undefined
Audrie Pott hanged herself in her mother's house, eight days after she was assaulted at a student party

Three US teenagers convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl, who later committed suicide, have been sentenced to between 30 and 45 days in a juvenile detention centre.

According to reports on Wednesday, two 16-year-olds and a 17-year-old admitted last September in a California court that they had sexually assaulted and taken photographs of the girl, Audrie Pott. The photos were later shared with school friends.

Two were ordered to serve 30 days in juvenile detention at weekends, while the third was sentenced to 45 consecutive days. None of the boys have been named.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Pott hanged herself on September 10, 2012 in the bathroom at her mother’s house. 

She had gone to a party eight days beforehand, drunk alcohol and fallen asleep.

She woke up without her shorts on and with “mocking words” written in several places on her body, the Chronicle said.

During the course of the week, she learned that photographs had been taken of her during the assault and shared through text messages with other students, her family said.

Lawrence and Sheila Pott, her parents, have sued the three boys.

On Tuesday the parents’ lawyer Robert Allard said: “As much as we strongly disagree with and are actively attempting to change the lenient privacy laws afforded to juveniles, even when they commit as here heinous acts on an unconscious minor, we cannot publicly comment on any aspect of any criminal proceedings involving these young men.”

Allard also referred to allegations that two of the boys possessed pornographic pictures of another girl after Pott had hanged herself, but before they were arrested.

“The fact that they have not learned their lesson is demonstrated by the fact that two of these young adults, even after Audrie’s death, have continued to engage in ‘slut shaming’ other young women through, for example, the dissemination of nude photographs,” he said.

Source: AP