Recent regional news reports indicated that three teenage boys – one of whom now attends Christopher High School in Gilroy – pleaded guilty to felonies related to the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl who killed herself days after the incident.
Two of the 16-year-old suspects pleaded guilty to the felony of digitally penetrating the victim, Audrie Pott, and possessing photographs of her, according to reports from the San Jose Mercury-News and the San Francisco Chronicle.
The third defendant, a 17-year-old boy, pleaded guilty to the same two felonies plus additional charges related to his possession of photos of other girls, according to the news reports.
The three juvenile suspects served sentences between 30 and 45 days in juvenile detention, according to the reports.
Because the criminal proceedings took place in juvenile court, the privacy of the defendants is heavily protected and those with knowledge of the case declined to comment.
Pott was assaulted while she was passed out drunk at an overnight party at a classmate’s house in Saratoga in September 2012. Days later, after learning attendees at the party took pictures of the assault and distributed them to her classmates, she hanged herself in her bathroom of her parents’ Saratoga home.
Pott’s family has since filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit against the suspects and their families which is still pending, according to Pott family spokesman Ed Vasquez.
Vasquez added “as much as we’d love to comment” on the reported juvenile criminal proceedings, he is prohibited by law from doing so. But that’s a law that Vasquez and the Pott family’s attorney Robert Allard would like to see changed.
“The public has a right to know,” Vasquez said. “The juvenile proceedings are masked in secrecy.”
