Parallels in U.S. case of locker room sex attacks

Prosecutors’ description conjures up similarities to St. Michael’s scandal

WASHINGTON— When the sophomore football players entered the freshman locker room, authorities say, one held up a fourfoot broom. He pumped his fist and chanted.

Lights went off. The handle of the broom could be heard banging against a wall.

“It’s time,” another sophomore said.

One of the freshmen tried to leave. A sophomore blocked him from doing so.

This prelude — as described by prosecutors in court on Monday — came before what authorities said was a terrifying series of sexual assaults against four teammates on Oct. 31 inside a locker room at Damascus High School, a public school in Montgomery County, Md., about an hour north of Washington, D.C.

The case bears eerie similarities to the unfolding scandal at St. Michael’s College School, a private all-boys Catholic school. That case, which also involves young teen boys, a locker room and an alleged gang sex assault with a broomstick, exploded this month after graphic video emerged on social media a little over a week after the Maryland incident allegedly happened.

Four 15-year-old suspects, making their first appearance in Montgomery County District Court on Monday, have each been charged with one count of first-degree rape, three counts of attempted first-degree rape and one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree rape. They were all members of Damascus’s junior varsity team, as were four alleged victims.

The boys are facing life in prison, the Associated Press reported.

“The defendants’ conduct was astonishingly cruel,” Montgomery Deputy State’s Attorney Peter Feeney said in court. “These crimes were intended to inflict pain, degrade and humiliate the weaker members of the football team.”

In the St. Mike’s case, six young teens have each been charged with assault, gang sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon, in relation to a locker room video that surfaced on social media in mid-November showing an alleged sexual assault of another young teen with a broomstick.

The boys, who are all out on bail, are minors and cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.