Three teen boys have been arrested and charged with sexual assaulting their classmate, Audrie Pott, while she was intoxicated and passed out at a house party. Pott, who attended Saratoga High School in California, committed suicide at age 15, hanging herself eight days after photos of the attack were posted online. The case bears eerie similarities to the sexual assault of the Steubenville rape case in Ohio last year. Two teenagers were found guilty in that incident. The tragic incident occurred nack in September 2012 when Audrie Pott went to a party at the home of a friend whose parents had gone out of town. She passed out and was allegedly attacked as she was unconscious. When photos of the alleged rape spread online, the traumatized student posted on her own Facebook page that it was the “worst day of her life.” Eight days later, she killed herself. “Poor Audrie was terrorized by cyber-bullying,” an attorney for Pott’s family, Robert Allard, told the San Jose Mercury News , adding that the family throughly investigated the matter. “There is no doubt in our minds that the victim, then only 15, was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious.” The family, which has set up a charitable foundation for music and art scholarships, two of Audrie’s passions, is calling for a new law bearing their late daughter’s name. “Audrie’s Law would address some of the things that happened here,” Allard said. “There are two common elements here that are being repeated across the country – sexual assault by an adolescent and the cyber-bullying that follows.” A school resource officer tipped off authorities to the attack and the students involved. The teens, two 16 and one 15, were not arrested until seven months later. They were booked Thursday into a juvenile facility, charged with two felony counts and one misdemeanor count each, according to a police spokesman. The Pott family said they hope the teens will be charged as adults. “The wound is still very raw,” their attorney said of the Pott family. “They want to feel as if justice will be done after these kids were arrested, after acting as if nothing had happened. But at the same time it’s a reminder that Audrie is gone.” The case mirrors yet another in Nova Scotia where 15-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons committed suicide last Sunday after enduring a sexual assault in 2011. Parsons was allegedly a victim of sexual battery by four boys and later bullied after sharing cellphone photos of the attack with their classmates. Police cited a lack of evidence to charge the teens in the case.
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Audrie Pott Suicide: Three Boys Charged With Sexual Assault Following Teen’s Death
