While raping a teen girl, her attacker filmed the sexual assault and sent video proof of his crimes to his friends. However, instead of locking up the criminal, the judge unbelievably told the girl that he was going to drop the case because her rapist’s life could be ruined by a conviction.
In one of the most unbelievable outcomes of a rape case, a county court judge has not only decided not to prosecute a 16-year-old boy for rape but also chastised the victim for even reporting the incident. According to The New York Times, Monmouth County Superior Court Judge James Troiano confirmed that he would not sentence the young man, despite video evidence proving his crime, because he “came from a good family” and “had good test scores.”
So he denied prosecutors’ motion to try the 16-year-old as an adult. “He is clearly a candidate for not just college but probably for a good college,” Judge James Troiano of Superior Court said last year in a two-hour decision while sitting in Monmouth County.
According to court documents, the 16-year-old boy, whose name is withheld for legal purposes, circulated a video of himself raping a severely intoxicated teen girl and bragging about his crime. The teen, identified only as G.M.C., expressed absolutely no remorse as he spread the disturbing video around for four months, taunting his victim.
“[W]hen your first time having sex was rape,” he boasted in an accompanying text, according to court documents. “Boy, if I had a knife on me… when I f–ked her, I’d be the epitome of this show.”
In an almost incoherent bout of logical fallacy, Judge Troiano argued that it didn’t qualify as rape because it didn’t involve “two or more males” holding the victim “either at gunpoint or weapon, clearly manhandling a person.” Troiano added that the prosecutors should have tried to discourage the teen girl from pressing charges against G.M.C. because it could have a “devastating effect” on his life.
Thankfully, the victim’s family refused to take Judge Troiano’s injustice. The case was soon brought before an appeals court, which allowed the girl to move from a family court to a grand jury. The alleged rapist will now be tried as an adult thanks to a state law that allows juveniles as young as 15 to held criminally accountable for serious crimes.
Understandably, Judge Troiano’s decision and reasoning have been harshly criticized by the appeals court. The judge has been accused of obvious bias and expressing a deeply immoral defense of the suspect. The appeals court is expected to convict G.M.C. and deliver proper punishment.
The judge in Monmouth County, Mr. Troiano, was scolded by the appellate court, according to the panel’s decision. “That the juvenile came from a good family and had good test scores we assume would not condemn the juveniles who do not come from good families and do not have good test scores from withstanding waiver application,” the panel wrote in its decision.
Prosecutors confirmed that the victim, who is identified by the alias “Mary,” was too intoxicated to remember the incident. She only discovered that she had been raped after finding bruises on her body and later seeing the video.
Court documents confirm that Mary was raped from behind as her attacker allowed her head to repeatedly strike the wall in front of her. She was then left behind by the rapist to be abused by a few of his friends.
“While on the sofa, a group of boys sprayed Febreze on Mary’s bottom and slapped it with such force that the following day she had hand marks on her buttocks,” according to court documents.
When Mary awoke the following morning, she saw the bruises on her body and her torn clothing. She was then driven home by a friend’s mother and told her family that she feared “sexual things had happened at the party” without her consent or knowledge.
G.M.C. refuses to admit that he had made the recording or distributed the video among his friends. He also claims that his friends are lying to the court in a bid to get him into trouble. However, the prosecution has called G.M.C.’s behavior “calculated and cruel,” insisting that his actions were “sophisticated and predatory.”
G.M.C. will be tried as an adult and will face a court of law that doesn’t care whether he “came from a good family” or makes decent grades and plans to attend college. The appeals court only concerns itself with whether or not he committed a crime and how said crime should be punished. Hopefully, justice will be delivered this time around.
