Steubenville Rape Trial: Witness testifies he recorded, deleted, sex act on girl in car

By: Julia Dahl
Topics: Daily Blotter

From left, defense attorney Adam Nemann, his client, Trent Mays, 17, and co-defendant, Ma'lik Richmond, 16, listen to testimony during Mays' and Richmond's trial on rape charges in juvenile court on Thursday, March 14, 2013 in Steubenville, Ohio.

/ Pool,AP Photo/Keith Srakocic

(CBS/AP) - The Steubenville, Ohio high school student who hosted the party where a 16-year-old girl was allegedly raped, testified today after being given immunity for having videotaped - and then deleted - some of the alleged assault.

Pictures: Steubenville Rape Trial

Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, and Trent Mays, 17, are accused of digitally penetrating a 16-year-old girl in the back seat of a car and in the witness's basement during a night of partying last August. The boys have pleaded not guilty.

The 17-year-old witness testified that the girl was throwing up and slurring her words on the night in question. He testified that he saw Mays digitally penetrate the girl in the back seat of a car early on the morning of August 12, 2012, and that he took video of the incident.

"It was one of those moments when you realize you did something stupid and wrong that night, so I deleted it," the teen said when asked why he had deleted the video.

The teen also testified that he saw Mays attempt to get the girl to perform oral sex on him while they were in his basement.

When cross-examined by Richmond's attorney, Walter Madison, the witness agreed that his memory of the incident might have been colored by all the attention the case had received on social media. Madison also suggested that the alleged victim wasn't behaving any differently than other people at the party.

It was in the witness's basement that a video depicting teens laughing about the girl, calling her "dead" and "so raped," was recorded.

The teenager who shot that video also testified Friday, according to Katie Hanna, the executive director of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, who is attending the trial. Hanna told Crimesider that the teen testified he saw one of the defendants put his fingers in the girl's vagina in the basement at one of the parties, but didn't know what to do.

If found guilty of rape, Mays and Richmond face incarceration in a juvenile facility until the age of 21.

Complete coverage of the Steubenville Rape Case on Crimesider