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A teenager testified in the Steubenville rape trial today that he'd personally witnessed defendant Trent Mays put his fingers inside the victim's vagina as they drove from one party to another, and even recorded it on his cellphone—though he says he deleted the video the next morning, realizing he'd done "something stupid and wrong." The 17-year-old testified only after the judge gave him immunity from prosecution, the AP reports. Witness accounts are crucial to the trial, because the victim doesn't appear to remember what happened.
Yesterday, the court heard a series of disturbing text messages from and to various people involved in the case, CNN reports. A sampling:
- In one, the girl asks Mays what happened the night before. "Don't lie about anything. I need to know the truth. People keep asking. Idk (I don't know) what to say."
- "Swear to God I don't remember doing anything with them," the girl says in another message. "I wasn't being a slut. They were taking advantage of me."
- In one exchange, a friend asks Mays, "Did u do it?" Mays replies, "No, lol. She could barely move."
- In another, Mays tells a friend, "I'm pissed all I got was a hand job, though. I should have raped since everyone thinks I did."
The defense countered these messages by asking the computer forensics expert who presented them if she could prove the defendants were the ones who sent the messages. "I can't put a person behind a cellphone," she replied.
