Two 15-year-old boys have been sentenced to 5 years of probation over the livestreamed sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl in Chicago last March.
As NPR reported at the time, the girl, then a freshmen in high school, was sexually assaulted by as many as six different boys and men. Video of the attack was streamed on Facebook Live. Dozens of people watched, none of whom called police to report the rape.
The two teenagers, who pleaded guilty to child pornography in a plea deal in November, will also have to register as sex offenders, Reuters reports.
"The victim, now 16, and her mother looked on from the rear of the courtroom as Judge Patricia Mendoza sentenced the boys on Wednesday," The Associated Press reports. "Both teens were originally charged with aggravated sexual assault and manufacturing and dissemination of child pornography."
Prosecutors had sought prison sentences in juvenile facilities, The Chicago Tribune reports, but the judge decided registering as sex offenders for at least a decade would have more repercussions than jail time.
Charges against a third teenage boy are pending, the newspaper says.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the prosecutor read a statement from the girl during the sentencing hearing:
"[S]he said the sexual assault "has very traumatically altered my life."
"The teen said she lost longtime friends, with some even sending her threats through social media.
" 'The worst part of this is being able to Google my name and seeing everything that happened to me,' she wrote."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
