Carmel Teen Victim's Attorney Says Felony Charges Warranted

One of the victim's attorneys of an alleged sexual assault "touching in a rude or insolent manner", or hazing if your prefer, by several former members of the Carmel High School basketball team is speaking out about the mere misdemeanor charges Hamilton Co. Prosecutor Sonia Leerkamp announced on Monday. "But based on what my client told me, there was criminal conduct that took place that would support felony charges," Robert Turner told the Star. When questioned by reporters about the more lurid details missing from the indictment on Monday, Leerkamp cautioned reporters not to put stock in the rumor and innuendo associated with the case. On the other side of the coin, I'm hearing that there is "rumor and innuendo" being spread by friends of the accused that no sexual assault "touching in a rude or insolent manner" took place because, in the case of at least one of the victims, he was gay and wanted it, or so the story goes. From the beginning, Leerkamp, the Carmel police and Carmel school officials have seemed far more concerned about protecting the accused than the victims in this case. While the rest of the world may not have known the victims, their identity was known to most students who attend the school. Their lives are permanently scarred and the accused don't seem the least bit bothered by what has transpired.

Did anyone catch the surveillance video of them while they were in lock up on local television news stations last night? It showed John Laskowski and one of the others charged acting seemingly relaxed practicing their golf swings, doing high kicks and squats and otherwise carrying on as if they hadn't a care in the world. A psychology expert interviewed by one of the news stations after reviewing the video tape found their behavior under the circumstances disturbing. I was surprised the sheriff's department released the surveillance video tape to the news media. Somebody is probably getting their butt kicked good for doing so as I write. 

Some people have brought to my attention that a pornographic website, which supposedly shows real videos of hazing of college guys trying to get into a fraternity, is representative of the mind set of some of our esteemed male youth on the notion of rite of passage. I'm not going to link to it so nobody mistakenly links to it and gets in trouble for violating their computer use policy at work, but if you google the words "haze him", you won't have any problem locating it.

UPDATE: One of the victim's attorneys, Robert Turner, confirms to reporters that his client's pants were pulled down and he was anally penetrated by one of the accused while the others held him down. From his comments, it appeared that this took place on more than one occasion. Here's what he had to say:

Attorney Robert Turner said the four seniors, then teammates of the victim on the high school basketball team, held the victim down, pulled down his pants and proceeded with some form of "anal penetration." Turner said the attacks occurred on a team bus Jan. 22 and earlier in a high school locker room. He declined to say how many times the attacks occurred.