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Girl sentenced to juvenile facility for assaulting autistic boy in Southern Maryland Girl sentenced to juvenile facility for assaulting autistic boy in Southern Maryland
(about 7 hours later)
The younger of the two girls accused of assaulting and tormenting a 16-year-old autistic boy in Southern Maryland — including luring him out to a frozen pond that he fell into repeatedly — was sentenced Thursday to a maximum of about six years in a secure juvenile detention facility. Before she was sentenced Thursday to a maximum of six years in a state juvenile detention center, the 15-year-old assailant of an autistic boy in Southern Maryland pleaded for leniency. The girl, who had used her cellphone to record the abuse, asked a St. Mary’s County judge if she could avoid jail and instead be placed in a community-based treatment program.
The 15-year-old girl pleaded guilty earlier this month to second-degree assault and displaying an obscene photograph of a boy, and a St. Mary’s County judge ordered her on Thursday to a lockdown juvenile facility until age 21, or earlier if authorities deem it appropriate. (The girl is a juvenile and has not been publicly identified by authorities.) But Judge Michael Stamm sternly rejected the Chopticon High School student’s request, declaring that her actions and those of her accomplice — which included luring the autistic 16-year-old onto a frozen pond, where he fell in multiple times, and encouraging him to try to have sex with his family’s dog — were “horrific.” The 15-year-old, he said, posed a danger to the community.
The other girl in the case, Lauren A. Bush, 17, has been charged as an adult with first-degree assault, child-pornography solicitation and false imprisonment and, if convicted, faces up to 80 years in prison. In urging the judge to give the girl “intense long-term residential treatment,” St. Mary’s prosecutor John Pleisse said that authorities also have been investigating allegations that she and her friend bullied two other people — including a second disabled student at Chopticon.
Bush is undergoing several weeks of psychological examinations at a state juvenile detention center while she awaits a hearing in late May, when a St. Mary’s judge will decide whether to transfer her case to a juvenile court or keep her case in adult court. “We’re still investigating [one youth], and we know about another disabled person that was taken advantage of,” Pleisse told Stamm, using the alleged victims’ first names.
In their charging documents, St. Mary’s County sheriff’s deputies say the girls from Chopticon High School repeatedly assaulted their schoolmate from December to March and that their acts were all captured on video on the younger girl’s cellphone. According to authorities, Bush held a knife against the boy’s throat twice, both girls coerced him into walking over a frozen pond into which he fell multiple times while the girls did nothing to help, and they tried to push him into having sex with his family’s dog. The other girl involved in the case, Lauren A. Bush, 17, has been charged as an adult with first-degree assault, false imprisonment and child-pornography solicitation and, if convicted, faces up to 80 years in prison. Bush, who is accused of twice holding a knife to the boy’s throat, is undergoing several weeks of psychological examinations at a state juvenile detention center while she awaits a May hearing on whether her case should be transferred to a juvenile court.
The boy has told the Washington Post in an interview that he wants all charges against the girls to be dropped and that they should get no jail time. He believes what the authorities called assaults were actually games. But his parents are furious and hope the girls receive lengthy sentences. This month, the 15-year-old pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and displaying an obscene photograph of a boy. Stamm said she will be held at a secure juvenile facility until age 21 at the most but could be released earlier if authorities believe that her rehabilitation is progressing quickly. (The Washington Post generally does not identify juveniles in criminal cases.)
The girl, dressed in a bright pink hoodie and shackled at her feet and hands, cried throughout Thursday’s hearing. Just before the judge’s ruling, she and her parents stood up and pleaded that she not enter a secure detention center and that she instead be ordered to a “community-based” program. In charging documents, St. Mary’s sheriff’s deputies say that the Chopticon girls repeatedly assaulted their schoolmate from December to March and that their acts were captured on the younger girl’s cellphone.
“I just feel a not-lockdown facility is going to best for me,” the girl said. The 15-year-old, dressed in a bright-pink hoodie and shackled at her feet and hands, cried throughout Thursday’s hearing. The girl wrote an apology letter to the parents of the autistic boy, but when she rose to speak before the court, the girl did not say she was sorry and instead only asked to avoid a jail.
“Of course you do,” St. Mary’s County Judge Michael Stamm interjected with obvious sarcasm. “I just feel a not-lockdown facility is going to be best for me,” the girl said.
After the girl failed to apologize face to face to the autistic boy’s family in open court — she did write the parents an apology letter, however — Stamm sternly rejected her request to avoid a lockdown facility. He called her actions “horrific” and said that she “groomed” the boy for “your own selfish fun.” He also declared that she was a “high risk” to the community. “Of course you do,” Stamm interjected with obvious sarcasm.
The boy’s father, a federal government contracting analyst, took the stand and addressed the girl directly. “Your actions have betrayed the trust of someone who thought you were their friend,” he said. “I can say that [my son] almost never smiles, and I hope in time he will heal. I also hope that you will grow to understand that it is wrong to prey upon the weak in our community.”The boy’s father, a federal government contracting analyst, took the stand and addressed the girl directly. “Your actions have betrayed the trust of someone who thought you were their friend,” he said. “I can say that [my son] almost never smiles, and I hope in time he will heal. I also hope that you will grow to understand that it is wrong to prey upon the weak in our community.”
In an earlier interview with The Washington Post, the boy said he wants to resume his friendship with the girls and does not believe that they did anything that warrants jail time. He believes that what the authorities called assaults were actually games, but his parents are furious and want lengthy sentences for both girls.
James Tanavage, the 15-year-old girl’s attorney, told the judge that his client takes responsibility for the attacks and that Bush was “more aggressive.” The 15-year-old, he said, is “in­cred­ibly remorseful about her involvement” and the fact that she became mixed up in a “perfect storm” with the “wrong person at the wrong time.”
Tanavage and the girl’s parents declined to comment.
After the sentencing, Sgt. Cara Grumbles, a spokeswoman for the St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department, said the detective handling the autistic boy’s case interviewed the father of another disabled young man who had been bullied by the girls. The father, however, has declined to press charges on behalf of his son, who is now 22 and lives in another state.
His older sister told The Post in an interview that he’d lived near the 15-year-old and that both she and Bush harassed her family numerous times.
“They put my brother’s name on a gay Web site, and his address, and these two men showed up at our house,” said the sister, who requested anonymity in order to protect her brother. “We were having a lot of problems with [the younger girl] and Lauren coming over and destroying my dad’s property.”
Her younger brother, she said, attended Chopticon and has a physical condition that makes him “mentally slow and handicapped.”
“They would say he’s retarded,” she said. “I remember him coming home in tears because they’d tease him. They threatened to beat him up.”