The bad news from Steubenville, Ohio has been enough for any town to bear these past few months, but unfortunately, it only seems to be getting worse. Reports are now surfacing that Reno Saccoccia, head football coach for the two convicted rapists Ma'lik Richmond and Trent Mays, was fully aware of the incident and even tried to protect his athletes from prosecution. What's worse: he wasn't the only one.
During the trial last week that was the talk of internet forums and blogs all over internet, shocking evidence came to light that only furthered the damage already done in the otherwise unassuming town of Steubenville, Ohio. Already two local high school students were being convicted of rape in front of a national audience, but now it appears that many others in the community had kept mum about the incident in an effort to protect the guilty parties.
The fallout from this trial should be quite damaging to the community. Attorney General Mike DeWine is already setting his sights on quite a few other people whose involvement in the investigation (or lack thereof) could have potentially undermined the process of justice. A grand jury hearing is being scheduled for early April to charge others for their roles in what could be a cover-up of unsettling proportions.
"You cannot bring finality to this without the convening of a grand jury," DeWine said on Sunday, shortly after the guilty verdict was reached for both Richmond and Mays. "We have 16 witnesses who would not talk to us."
Saccoccia is likely to be one of the top targets in the new investigation. At some point during the trial last week, the prosecution submitted as evidence a text message of Mays that stated that Reno Saccoccia had already "took care of it", in reference to their potential legal troubles with the victim. It is unknown currently to what extent Saccoccia was involved in any potential cover-up.
Though the prosecution for the grand jury has yet to detail who all they are bringing charges against, already there have been two arrests made. Two female high school students, 15 and 16, have already been placed in a juvenile jail for their role in sending threatening tweets to the victim over the popular social media site Twitter. They will both appear before a judge today.
