After two students and members of the Steubenville High School football team, Trent Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond, were found guilty Sunday of raping a 16-year-old girl, more charges are pending.
The rape case received widespread attention in the U.S., since Mays and Richmond posted images of the victim in a seemingly unconscious state to social media sites.
After the verdict was read, Attorney General Mike DeWine announced that two Steubenville girls have been arrested and charged with threatening the rape victim through social media.
"The 16-year-old is charged with one misdemeanor count of aggravated menacing for threatening the life of the victim on Twitter. The 15-year-old is charged with one misdemeanor count of menacing for threatening bodily harm to the victim on Facebook," Cleveland Plain Dealer reported..
"Let me be clear: 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," DeWine said in a statement on his web site.
Police are also pursuing information about a potential extra subject - a juvenile male- who may have also harassed the victim.
Sunday's verdict has a host of perspectives about the case. Some feel the verdict did not match the crime committed. Some suggested if the defendants were not juvenile delinquents their sentences would have been more severe. Some questioned why the victim had been that drunk to begin with.
"Networks are limited in how much footage they can show when it comes to the victim and her family, whereas they can show the boys' emotional breakdowns," Salon's Irin Carmon wrote. "But [CNN correspondent Poppy] Harlow was narrating events and not limited to footage. Yes, these boys are young. But the seriousness of their crimes was utterly glossed over in favor of a sideshow about whether a father told his son he loved him. We rarely see such compassion evinced for young offenders when the crime isn't rape, or when they lack the social status of football players."
One viewer, Gabriel Garcia, demanded through Change.org an on-air apology from the network.
"That CNN decided to paint the tears of the convicted Steubenville rapists in a sympathetic light and say how their lives were ruined-while completely ignoring the fact that the rape victim's life is the one whose life was ruined by these rapists' actions-is disgusting and helps perpetuate a shameful culture in which young people never understand the concept of consent and in which rape victims are blamed and ostracized," the petition read. "I request that you apologize on-air, several times over the course of the next week, at the start of every hour, for your shameful coverage... Admit that your coverage was extremely off base."
Perhaps in response to the criticism, CNN aired a segment on Monday that focused on the victim's struggle she faces as a survivor.
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