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KEY INFO: A comprehensive Steubenville timeline: extensive new analysis of the teen gang rape case (supporting evidence)

There has been an explosion of interest in the rape of a teenage girl last summer in Steubenville, Ohio.

I have been following the story since I saw the launch of Operation Roll Red Roll by Knight Sec, members of the Anonymous collective, on Christmas eve a few ~~weeks~~ months ago.

As there is widespread controversy around the case, I will use the terms ‘rape’ and ‘alleged rape’ interchangeably.

I wish to present a more comprehensive – fuller (and mindfuller) – timeline of the story than those available at the time of writing.

At the time of writing, all the information shown here is publicly available. There is no hacking involved – this is simply investigative journalism.

Check out this new interactive timeline!

***

I wish to preserve the anonymity of the rape victim. She has not been publicly named, although her identity is known within the Steubenville community. I also wish to protect the reputation of those not directly involved in the rape, or who may be POTENTIAL WITNESSES. I have edited some of the screenshots in accordance with this.

***

My timeline starts some months before the date that the alleged rape took place and includes information from a variety of sources.

My interest in this case is to assist with the free flow of information and discussion about the events surrounding the alleged rape.

Find out who is who – and find out more about the relationships surrounding the case »

A quick note about time stamps: All times are in UTC, unless explicitly stated.

You can also see some tweets from Trent Mays on girls (bitches, sluts and hoes) >

5 March, 2012: Cody Saltsman and the victim have been dating for 6 months.

UPDATE (2013-01-20) – May 25, 2012: The city of STEUBENVILLE steps up its campaign against lawbreakers in the wake of recent shootings and other high-profile crimes.

Steubenville Police Chief William McCafferty joined city Manager Cathy Davison and Jefferson County Prosecutor Jane Hanlin in announcing the arrests of two suspects earlier in the week, and to deliver a message to those involved in breaking the law, during a press conference Thursday on the steps of the City Municipal Building.

“This is the beginning of a citywide crackdown,” said Hanlin. “We want to send a message that we won’t tolerate this here.

“I’m also asking the public for tips (on lawbreakers),” Hanlin continued. “It’s going to take the entire community … to stop this.”

Davison echoed Hanlin and McCafferty’s comments:

“With all of us working together two arrests have been made,”

said Davison, adding she had a message to deliver to those breaking the law in Steubenville:

“If you break the law in our community it will not be tolerated.”

– www.hsconnect.com

3 June, 2012:Cody advertises for girlfriends for Cameron King on Twitter.

7 July, 2012: Cody makes plans to go to the Vans Warped Tour.

11 July, 2012: Cody Saltsman attents the Vans Warped Tour (at Cuyahoga Falls, OH?).

A video of Cody Saltsman fighting after after Of Mice & Men at the Vans Warped Tour later surfaced.

Here is what Cody had to say about that:

16 July, 2012: Tweets from Cody suggests his relationship with Jane Doe may have ended.

UPDATE (2013-01-10) - 17 July, 201: Introducing Derek M. Bocek. You will see why I have included him here later on.

23 July, 2012: Someone tweets at Derek Bocek.

26 July, 2012: Bocek has this to say.

30 July, 2012: A presentation by Marianne Hemmeter called ‘When Bullying Becomes Criminal’ is uploaded to the web.

See Marianne Hemmeter’s presentation here

Various tweets and retweets from Cody Saltsman, Trent Mays, and Derek Bocek over the following week:

UPDATE (2013-01-10) : Trent Mays tweets about Jane Doe!

10 August, 2012: Jane Doe tweets with her friends.

UPDATE (2013-1-10) – Anthony Craig is mentioned in a few tweets:

11-12 August, 2012: The incident that began this case occurred.

The alleged rape took place on the night of Saturday, 11 August and the early hours of Sunday, 12 August.

Nobody except the people that were there (and by all accounts, not even some of them) knows what really happened that night.

SEE TRIAL TESTIMONY BELOW

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

~~UPDATE (2013-01-10) : What REALLY Happened That Night!~~

~~http://localleaks.blogs.ru/~~

UPDATE (2013-01-11) : Big Red wins on day of rape.

During the daytime, the Big Red football team won a game and all the players and its supporters were in high spirits

Read more from The Daily Mail. Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook.

Below are various tweets covering this time period.

Trent Mays announces a party at Jake Howarth’shouse:

The following image shows tweets between Trent Mays and the following people:

Malik Richmond (@mrichmond42) – accused of rape charges, along with Trent Mays. Mays is also charged with illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.
Cody Saltsman (@cody_saltsman) – Football #10 – Ex-boyfriend of the victim; they split up a few months before the rape. UNCONFIRMED RUMOUR: It has been rumoured that he set up this whole rape/kidnap up as a means of getting revenge on the victim, whom he once dated. These rumors have been made part of public record in an amended complaint filed by Cody’s attorney. Cody and his parents tried to sue blogger Alexandra Goddard (of www.prinnified.com) and several anonymous commenters for publishing false and defamatory statements.
Anthony Craig (@degoswag) – Wrestler – Craig admitted to having a relationship with the victim, said he saw the victim naked in Cole’s basement. He said he saw Richmond laying beside her but couldn’t tell what Richmond was doing. He said Mays was smacking his penis off her side.
Mark Cole (@35_cole) – shot a video of sexual conduct in his car between Mays and the victim as they were driving to Cole’s house, and later deleted the video from his phone.
Pat Pizzoferrato (@patty_ice11) – Baseball #8
Cameron King (@the_king133) – Football #18

The tweets suggets that the rape itself was being discussed.

UPDATE (2013-01-10) : More detailed time information for the tweet timeline!

At 8:22 in the morning, Trent Mays tweets about Wutang clan.

Shortly afterwards, Trent asks his friends “how much?”.

Some hours later – at a time when I have often woken up after a night of partying – he tweets again with his cryptic message.

POSSIBLE EVIDENCE: Is this a response to an answer he got from one of his buddies to his previous question?

Here are the timestamps of those tweets again:

1:25 AM, Sunday 12 Aug

2:02 PM, Sunday 12 Aug

7:25 PM, Sunday 12 Aug

10:11 PM, Sunday 12 Aug

Again, these tweets suggest that stories and possibly images or other media was being shared between Trent Mays, Cody Saltsman, Malik Richmond, Cameron King and Pat Pizzoferrato.

POTENTIAL WITNESSES: Cameron King and Pat Pizzoferrato.

On or around this date, Michael Nodianos tweets this:

His comments suggest that a rape took place in which the victim was sodomized.

A friend of Jane Doe, apparently unaware of what had occurred, posts some pictures to instagram, possibly of the parties. These images may contain POTENTIAL WITNESSES:

http://instagram.com/p/ON2bmfE2-V/

http://instagram.com/p/ON2rvQE2-d/

http://instagram.com/p/ON27p3E2-u/

http://instagram.com/p/ON3wKqE2_K/

http://instagram.com/p/ON32qkE2_M/

Friends of Jane Doe then quickly tweet:

More chatter posted and retweeted by Jane Doe’s friends:

As I said before, nobody except the people that were there (and by all accounts, not even some of them) know what really happened that night of Saturday, 11 August.

What can be reconstructed is the following:

The girl began drinking early on. By 10 or 10:30 that night she was stumbling and slurring her words.
People at the party taunted her, chanted and cheered as a Steubenville High baseball player dared bystanders to urinate on her.
Two hours later, the girl left the party with several Big Red football players, including Trent Mays and Malik Richmond. She was carried out of the house by Mays and Richmond while she “was sleeping.” They headed to the home of Mark Cole, who has now become a witness for the prosecution.
In the back seat of Mark’s Volkswagen Jetta, Mays proceeded to flash the girl’s breasts and penetrate her with his fingers, while Mark videotaped it on his phone.
At a third party, the girl could not walk on her own and vomited several times before toppling onto her side. At one point, the girl was on the ground, naked, unmoving and silent
Between them, Anthony Craig and Evan Westlake testified that at Mark Cole’s house, Malik Richmond was seen behind the victim, with his hands between her legs, penetrating her with his fingers. Trent Mays was smacking his penis off her side.
The next morning the girl awoke with no recollection of what happened, but photographs of the incident were already circulating twitter and via text messages.

[Thanks to http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/the-definitive-timeline-of-the-steubenville-rape-s]

UPDATE / CONFIRMATION (2013-01-11) : Jane Doe lost her phone the morning after assault.

The following UPDATES were submitted to us on Friday, 11 January, 2013:

“fyi - tweets were 150 days ago (august 12th 2012) - day after assault.”

- Anonymous, VA area

and

“date is 148 days ago I believe”

- Anonymous

Adam Nemann, Mays’s lawyer, said the case was unusual because the police collected no physical evidence or testimony from the girl who asserts she was raped.

“The whole question is consent,” he said. “Was she conscious enough to give consent or not? We think she was. She gave out the pass code to her phone after the sexual assault was said to have occurred.”

– The New York Times

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UPDATE (2013-03-14) – TRIAL TESIMONY

Julia Lefever, 17, a Catholic Central High School student, said she was friends with the victim even though they attended different schools.

Lefever said she and the victim on Aug. 11 went across the street to the Belardine house, where she and the victim were drinking vodka. She said the victim got drunk extremely fast and was slurring her words and stumbling when she walked. Lefever said she and the victim split slightly more than a half a fifth of vodka. She said she had seen the victim intoxicated before but nothing like that night.

Lefever said she saw the victim talking to Mays during the evening.

When the Belardine party was broken up around 12:30 a.m. on Aug. 12, she told the victim to stay there because the victim’s mother knew she was spending the night at Lefever’s house.

“I told her to stay and Trent said she would be fine,” Lefever said.

Lefever said she went back inside the Belardine house to get other girls to help but the victim and Mays were gone when she came back outside.

Lefever said she tried to call the victim on her call phone. She saw pictures of the victim later on social media. She said she stayed up until around 3 a.m. on Aug. 12 monitoring social media to find out what happened to the victim.

Jake Howarth, 19, a freshman at Ashland University and a Steubenville High School graduate, said about 12 people from the Belardine party came to his house, where he said there was no alcohol consumed. He said his parents were upstairs sleeping.

Elayna Andres, 17, a Steubenville High School student, said she was with her boyfriend, Jake Howarth, at his house when people left the Belardine party and started to show up there.

Andres said the victim threw up in the bathroom as soon as she came into the house. She said she sat with the victim on the couch, trying to convince her to go back to the Belardine house. Her boyfriend said the victim had to leave.

Howarth said he saw the victim with Mays and Richmond. Mays told Howarth the victim had to use the bathroom to throw up. Howarth said the victim appeared drunk and was stumbling toward the bathroom. After the victim threw up, Howarth told her she had to leave. Howarth further told Madison that he didn’t have to clean up any vomit from the victim in the bathroom. On further questioning, Howarth said the victim was swaying back and forth while sitting on a couch talking to his girlfriend.

Pat Pizzoferrato, 17, a Steubenville High School student, said he went to the Howarth house after the Belardine’s residence. He saw the victim with Mays. He said the victim was stumbling while trying to walk. He said girls at the Howarth house told the victim to go back to the Belardine residence. The victim said she was fine, he said.

Andres said the victim stumbled and fell trying to get to the door.

Mays and Richmond then allegedly grabbed the victim by her arms and legs and tried to carry her out. An infamous picture was taken of the moment and posted on social media.

Cody Saltsman took the picture of Mays and Richmond trying to carry the victim out of the house, Pizzoferrato said. He said the victim wasn’t moving.

Andres told Mays and Richmond to stop because Mays was stepping on the victim’s hair. She said Richmond then put the girl over his shoulder and carried her out.

Jake Howarth saw the victim on the street outside his house again throwing up. Her shirt was removed but she had a bra on underneath, he said. He said he thought he heard Richmond say someone should urinate on the victim.

Pizzoferrato said he saw the victim outside of the Howarth house vomiting and she had vomit on her shirt. He said he set at bottle of water beside her.

Andres, who began crying at one point during her testimony, said Anthony Craig returned to the house after leaving and showed a picture of the victim on his cell phone.

Howarth said Craig and Westlake came back to his house about an hour after leaving. He said Craig was showing a picture of the victim but his girlfriend wouldn’t allow him to look at the photo.

The picture was also shown to Michael Nodianos, who was seen in an infamous 12-minute YouTube video making inappropriate comments.

Howarth said Nodianos and Westlake were joking about the picture.

Pizzoferrato said he saw another picture of the victim on Craig’s phone. He said the picture showed a female on her hands and knees, with a shirt on but no pants. He said Mays was standing behind her, with his pants down, spreading her buttocks. He said Richmond was in the background. He said he thought they just had sex with her.

Pizzoferrato told Nemann he didn’t see the face of the female in the picture.

He also told Madison it appeared the victim was sleeping or passed out while on the couch in the Howarth house.

As to the response of those at his house, Howarth said, “Everyone was shocked as to what was going on. There was a mixture of jokes going around and people being scared.”

Lefever said Cole called her in the morning on Aug. 12 and told her to come get the victim. Lefever said the victim “looked like a mess,” was confused and her shirt was inside out. Lefever said Mays and Richmond were in the basement of the Cole house. Both defendants, when asked by Lefever, said nothing happened, according to Lefever.

Lefever said the victim, when being driven away from the Cole house, again was asked what happened. She said the victim laid down in the backseat and started crying, saying she didn’t remember.

Lefever said she saw a picture of the naked victim on social media and it looked like the victim had been urinated on.

Pizzoferrato admitted he was the one who said he would pay someone to urinate on the victim. He said the statement was made as a joke. He told the court that he was embarrassed by the urination comment and was testifying to “undo” it.

Jonathan Sowers, a City Police detective, said he took a blanket recovered at the alleged crime scene to BCI. He also said he took mouth swabs of the two defendants, the victim, Cole, Craig and Nodianos to BCI in August for DNA testing. He said the victim’s shorts and shirt weren’t taken to BCI until Sept. 14, more than a month after the alleged incident.

[Source]

13 August, 2012: More chatter in the community and on Twitter as the news spreads.

Friends and supporters of Jane Doe rally around her…

…and chastise the “Rape Crew”:

Trent Mays responds to the criticism:

UPDATE (2013-01-10) – Some more tweets from Trent:

14 August, 2012: The incident was reported to Steubenville Police.

Friends support Jane Doe:

Cody Saltsman tweets about volleyball players:

While Trent Mays tweets this:

Although the tweet appears to have an incorrect word in it (“I’m gonna get in so much so for doing a favor”) it appears to convey the message:

I’m gonna get in so much trouble for doing a favor, for real.

POTENTIAL EVIDENCE: If rumors of a conspiracy to commit rape are true, then this tweet could be referring to the conspiracy.

This means that Mark Cole and @bryanpierro07 may be POTENTIAL WITNESSES. Mark has already testified, as a witness, that he shot a video of sexual conduct in his car between Trent Mays and the victim as they were driving to Cole’s house, and later deleted the video from his phone.

So who is @bryanpierro07? His twitter account has been deleted. But don’t worry. Here he is. He is Big Red’s #7.

POTENTIAL WITNESSES: Mark Cole and Brian Pierro.

August 15, 2012: On or around this date Cody Saltsman retweets the Nodi Wylin About a Dead Girl video to himself, Nodianos (the star of the video) and Pat Pizzoferrato.

16 August, 2012: Electronic devices of people who potentially had knowledge of the incident were taken, pursuant to search warrants.

Trent Mays tweets this, before his Twitter account becomes inactive:

Cody Saltsman retweets this:

A friend of the victim offers some retail therapy:

17 August, 2012: UPDATE! (2013-01-10)

Jefferson County Sheriff

ARRESTED:

Derek M. Bocek, 25, 107 Finley St., Toronto, Ohio

Gross sexual imposition involving a 15-year-old girl and violation of a protection order. [Source]

Steubenville Police request technical and investigative support from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation “BCI” (a state agency supervised by the Ohio Attorney General).

Here’s the official line from the website sponsored by the City of Steubenville and the Steubenville Police Department, which has the goal of disseminating the most accurate information about this case (Jefferson County Juvenile Court Case Numbers 2012-DL138 and 2012-139):

At the request of Steubenville Police, BCI expedited the evidence analysis. The analysis involved uncovering and reviewing tens of thousands of emails, texts, and photos from approximately a dozen electronic devices. The vast majority of such data was unrelated to the case. Investigators and forensic examiners never found any video of the alleged crime.

18 August, 2012: Jane Doe plays a soccer game and friends support her.

Big Red fan and webmaster of www.rollredroll.com Jim Parksreportedly tweeted:

“Enoguh [sic] with the hyperbole how can she be scarred for life [if she] supposedly can’t remember anything. and then played a soccer game a few days later?”

21 August, 2012: News spreads around town.

Kamy Belardine (?) (daughter of Tim Belardine, at whose house one of the parties allegedly took place) expresses her surprise:

22 August, 2012: Based on the investigation of the Steubenville Police, two juvenile males were arrested and charged.

Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond remained in juvenile detention until November 1, 2012 after the Visiting Judge Tom Lipps (from outside the county) was assigned to the case and placed the suspects under house arrest.

UPDATE (2013-01-10) – Original reports:

One juvenile was arrested at his house by Steubenville Police. The other juvenile was arrested at his residence in the county by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department.

http://weirtondailytimes.com/page/content.detail/id/586910/Two-juveniles-arrested-in-alleged-sexual-assault.html

Jane Doe’s friends express their ongoing support:

27 August, 2012: County Prosecuting Attorney Jane Hanlin delegates her authority to special prosecutors from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.

29 August, 2012: Jefferson County Juvenile Judge Samuel Kerr plans to step down from presiding over a case

http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/573675/Kerr—Hanlin-Step-Down-in-Rape—Kidnap-Case.html?nav=510

30 August, 2012: Steubenville Police meet with the special prosecutors.

31 August, 2012: Prinnie posts about Michael Nodianos.

Prinnie shows screenshots of Nodianos making comments about the ‘dead girl’, including alleging that the victim was sodomized and that a rape occurred:

Her post also shows screenshots of the video ‘Nodi Wylin About a Dead Girl’:

5 September, 2012: The following comment was made on www.prinnified.com about Cody Saltsman. The following are excerpts from this document:

12 September, 2012: More comments about Cody Saltsman.

14 September, 2012: Yet more comments about Cody Saltsman.

18 September, 2012: Again, more comments about Cody Saltsman and his family.

NOTE THAT THE DEFAMATION LAWSUIT REGARDING THESE COMMENTS WAS DROPPED.

19 September, 2010: Jane Doe’s friends express their ongoing support.

13 October, 2012: Juvenile judge Tom Lipps at the Jefferson County Justice Center ruled there was probable cause for rape charges to continue against Trent Mays and Malik Richmond. He dismisses kidnapping charges against the pair. He also ruled a charge against Mays of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material will continue.

18 October, 2012: More comments on prinnified.com.

CODY SALTSMAN was represented in this case by SHAWN M BLAKE and WHITNEY GIBSON.

JAMES SALTSMAN and JOHNA SALTSMAN are the natural parents / legal guardians of Cody Saltsman. [Independent source here]

2, November 2012: Malik Richmond and Trent Mays are released from juvenile detention.

15 December, 2012: Blog post by Holley Briley on her blog Busted Bitches and Internet Stalkers.

Defense attorney for Malik Richmond, Walter Madison Friday filed a motion for separate trials for both defendants citing that some of the statements made by Mays would incriminate (his client) Richmond. He called the statements “inconsistent” and chalked them up to “locker room boy talk.”

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Brumby, with the Ohio Attorney General’s Crimes Against Children unit who is representing the prosecution (along with Assistant Attorney General Marianne Hemmeter) objected to this motion by stating “there is no jury in a juvenile court trial, and Lipps as judge can make an educated determination as to the statements made by each defendant.”

Visiting Judge Tom Lipps who is presided over this matter said he wanted to “to make sure there is a fair hearing for both juveniles but also is concerned about an unnecessary delay in the trials and an added expense to the court.“

This case is set to begin on Feb. 13, 2013 in the Jefferson County Ohio Juvenile Court. Until then both Richmond and Mays are to remain on electronical monitoring and are to remain on house arrest and only allowed to leave the home for school and church. They are to attend juvenile court alternative school and are not allowed to participate in extracurricular activities. They were also ordered to have no contact with the victim or the other students who may have testified in the past or who may testify in the future regarding this case. [Source]

16 December, 2012: The New York Times writes an article about the case, attracting wider attention.

17 December, 2012: Deadspin picks up the story

23 December, 2012: Knight Sec posts this video.

24 December, 2012: Reactions to the Knight Sec video.

25 December, 2012: Deadspin reports on the KnightSec video.

27 December, 2012: Cody Saltsman and his family drop their lawsuit against blogger Alexandra Goddard and various commenters on her blog site.

As part of the settlement, Goddard acknowledged that there was no evidence of Cody’s involvement in the rape and Saltsman apologized in a statement for the tweets he sent the night of the alleged attack. Saltsman also acknowledged the work of the site’s bloggers “to make sure the full truth about that terrible night eventually comes out.” Source

Cody publicly posts the following statement. Cody was the only member originally named in connection with the rape by Anonymous to have come forward within the specified time frame and issued a public apology:

“I deeply regret my actions on the night of August 11, 2012. While I wasn’t at the home where the alleged assault took place, there is no doubt that I was wrong to post that picture from an earlier party and tweet those awful comments.

Not a moment goes by that I don’t wish I would have never posted that picture or tweeted those comments.

I want to sincerely apologize to the victim and her family for these actions.

I also want to acknowledge the work of several bloggers, especially Ms. Goddard at Prinniefied.com, in their efforts to make sure the full truth about that terrible night eventually comes out. At no time did my family mean to stop anyone from expressing themselves online – we only wanted to correct what we believed were misstatements that appeared on Ms. Goddard’s blog. I am glad that we have resolved our differences with Ms. Goddard and that she and her contributors can continue their work.”

– Cody Saltsman

Anonymous post a video of Cody Saltsman fighting after after Of Mice & Men at the Vans Warped Tour

Word spreads that Kamy Belardine (this Kamy?) hosted the party and assistant coach Matt Belardine provided the booze:

The legal drinking age in Ohio for consumption of an alcoholic beverage is 21.

Purchasing, possessing or consuming alcohol prior to your 21st birthday is a first-degree misdemeanor.

The maximum penalties associated with this offense are six months imprisonment or a $1,000 fine or both.

A person who furnishes alcohol to an underage person is guilty of a first-degree misdemeanor.

The maximum penalty associated with this offense is six months imprisonment or $1,000 fine or both. A social host, therefore, risks being fined and imprisoned when he/she furnishes alcohol to a person who is not 21 years of age.

– Ohio State University

POTENTIAL EVIDENCE: Both supplying alcohol to minors and underage drinking are first-degree misdemeanors with a maximum penalty of six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.

28 December, 2012: Ohio attorneys Anthony Calabrese III is accused of trying to bribe rape victims. The alleged bribes happened between 19 April and 6 November.

While I do not know if Calabrese has any connection to this rape case, this is relevant in that it shows that there were attorneys operating within the Steubenville area who were actively and illegally intervening in rape cases during the time frame that this rape and subsequent investigation took place.