Editor's Note (March 21, 2019, 11:37 a.m. EST): This story has been updated to reflect that the cases one teenager charged in adult court was moved to juvenile court.
A 15-year-old boy accused of raping fellow members of his Maryland high school football team in the school's locker room will be tried as a juvenile, moving the case out of adult court, a judge ruled Thursday.
The teen is one of five boys charged for alleged rapes of fellow players on the Damascus High School junior varsity football team last fall. He is the third of the teens whose case has been moved this year from adult court to juvenile court.
News4 does not name suspects charged as juveniles.
Four victims were stomped on, laughed at and sexually abused with a broom in what the defendants called a hazing ritual, prosecutors said.
A psychologist's report said the 15-year-old was the victim of a similar attack the previous year.
"He said he didn't report it because he didn't want to be labeled as a snitch or a punk," his lawyer, Shelly Brown, said Thursday.
On Oct. 31, 2018, the suspects targeted their smallest teammates, who they thought wouldn't fight back, police said. The suspects entered the locker room while the victims were changing for practice, investigators said.
It wasn't clear if there was an adult in or near the locker room at the time.
After the teens were charged, Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy objected to the use of the word hazing to described the alleged attacks.
“I’m offended by the term hazing,” he said. “It’s not hazing. These are crimes, and I would caution anyone to refer to this as hazing. These boys were victims of criminal acts. They were not victims of hazing, they were victims of first-degree rapes.”
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One other 15-year-old defendant was charged as an adult for the alleged rapes. McCarthy said Thursday that he will fight to keep his case in adult court. His case was sent back to juvenile court on March 21.
Another juvenile, whom police did not name, remains charged as a juvenile.
The four teens previously charged as adults were jailed, released on $20,000 bond and ordered to stay away from the high school and their alleged victims.
Once the criminal cases leave court, Montgomery County Public Schools will determine what actions, if any, they will take against the students.
