ROCKVILLE, Md. – Two teens charged with rape in the sexual assault of a Rockville High student exchanged messages plotting a sexual encounter involving the girl and both boys, Montgomery County prosecutors said in court on Thursday.
The new information shared during a bond review hearing for the younger boy counters claims from defense attorneys that the 14-year-old girl consented to the sexual activity. The girl told police the two boys took turns holding her down as they raped and sodomized her in a school bathroom. She said she told them repeatedly to stop.
Prosecutors said that they have communications between Jose Montano, 17, and Henry Sanchez, 18, planning for Montano to convince the girl to have sex in a school bathroom. The plan was for Sanchez to interrupt and to threaten to tell a teacher if Montano and the girl didn’t let him join them.
Defense attorneys for Montano said that the encounter between Montano and the girl was consensual and that the two teens arranged via text message to meet in the bathroom. They girl planned to skip gym class to have sex with Montano, they said.
Montano and the girl had sex previously and they shared sexual videos and photos, defense attorneys said. And she lied to police when she suggested she didn’t know Montano well. She never told investigators that she and Montano had sex together previously, calling it “impeachment by omission,” the defense attorneys said.
Judge James Sarsfield asked how Sanchez fit into such a scenario, but Montano’s attorneys said they couldn’t explain Sanchez’s involvement or whether the girl also consented Sanchez.
Sarsfield denied a request to reduce Montano’s bond and he remains in custody at a juvenile detention center.
Prosecutors said they had not seen the girl’s messages to Montano. But they did have photos of the two boys flashing MS-13 gang signs. Police are still investigating whether they boys have any ties to a gang.
But Montano’s attorney said the 17-year-old is not a member of the MS-13 gang.
The Central American street gang has been tied to a series of homicides in Montgomery County in the past year including the killing of a Gaithersburg girl whose body was found in a Fairfax County industrial park. Another teen was stabbed 40 times by suspected gang members in a Gaithersburg park.
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