Three teenagers confessed to raping Audrie Pott, 15, a Saratoga girl who committed suicide after the incident.
The rape took place at a drunken house party in 2012. The boys circulated photographs of the incident
The San Jose Mercury News reported that the three teens, aged 16 and 17, admitted to Santa Clara County Juvenile Court of "digitally penetrating" Pott and taking her photos on Sep. 2, 2012. Two of them also said that they possessed sexual photos of another girl.
Authorities have not revealed the names of the three teens. Two of them have been ordered to serve 30 days in juvenile detention at weekends and the third was sentenced to serve 45 days, reported CBC News.
The three accused raped a drunken Pott at the house party that she attended with her 12 schoolmates in September 2012. After waking Pott noticed that her pants were pulled down with explicit markings on her intimate parts.
A week later she realised that the photos of the sexual act were circulated across the school. Pott hanged herself on Sep.10, 2012.
Pott's parents, Lawrence and Sheila Pott, filed a complaint against the boys. "As much as we strongly disagree with and are actively attempting to change the lenient privacy laws afforded to juveniles, even when they commit as here heinous acts on an unconscious minor, we cannot publicly comment on any aspect of any criminal proceedings involving these young men," parent's attorney Robert Allard said, reported San Francisco Chronicle.
"The fact that they have not learned their lesson," Allard said, "is demonstrated by the fact that two of these young adults, even after Audrie's death, have continued to engage in 'slut shaming' other young women through, for example, the dissemination of nude photographs."
The punishment of 30 to 45 days juvenile detention is far less compared to what they would have got had they been adults. The federal courts sentence adults involved in such crimes for maximum of 10 years in prison.
"It's what I call justice by geography. The juvenile court has wide disparities in the amount of penalties it connects to specific behaviors," Barry Krisberg, a juvenile justice expert and senior fellow at UC Berkeley law school told the Mercury News. "On average, Santa Clara (County) has lower sentences than other places. They've embraced the treatment and rehabilitation strategy" -- a mission of California's welfare and institutions code -- "so this doesn't completely surprise me."
