Steubenville Rape Victim Threatened By Teen Girls; Why They Were Arrested

The trial for the rape case that horrified America ended Monday with the conviction of two high school football players, in the midst of a media frenzy that has been widely criticized for its impartial coverage. Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, were found delinquent in the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl while she was in a drunken stupor.

But the case did not stop with the verdict. Two girls from Steubenville High School, the school attended by the victim and both defendants, were arrested under charges of harassing and threatening the victim on social media.

Steubenville police Captain Joel Walker said the girls, aged 15 and 16, were held in juvenile detention. The oldest girl is charged with aggravated menacing when she threatened the life of the victim through Twitter. The youngest has one count of menacing after making a threat on Facebook, as stated by Attorney General Mike DeWine.

"Threatening a teenage rape victim will not be tolerated. If anyone makes a threat verbally or via the Internet, we will take it seriously, we will find you and we will arrest you," he said in a statement.

This occurrence links the case once more to the power of social media. The rape case, which happened last summer, quickly went viral when nude photos and videos of the victim were shared online by the perpetrators and others. A new symptom of how the Internet affects this case is how easy it makes to locate and attack the victim, whether it is done anonymously or not.

DeWine expressed plans to have a grand jury consider whether other teens should be charged in connection to the rape, either because of their collaboration in the spread of the photos or because they did not do anything to stop the crime -- which, by Ohio law, is a felony.

The rape has brought international attention to the small city of 18,000 and led to allegations of a cover-up to protect the students, both stars in their football team. The case has also made news for the unusual coverage by some news outlets, which revealed in sympathy to the defendants, describing them as "star students with a promising future" and focusing on the "devastating" verdict -- and flat out ignoring the victim.