Discussion has been rekindled regarding the August 2012 rape and kidnapping of a teenage girl in Ohio after members of Anonymous have published a video showing a witness making light of the crime on film only moments after.
The clip, released this week by an Anonymous cell calling itself “Knight Sec,” is reported to show former Steubenville, Ohio high school athlete Michael Colin Nodianos bragging about the sexual assault from a friend’s apartment. For 12 minutes, Nodianos laughs about a young woman who was reportedly drugged and raped at a party earlier in the evening in the small Ohio town. "She is so raped," he says. "Her puss is about as dry as the sun right now."She’s “deader than a door nail,” and “deader than OJ’s wife,” he’s recorded saying.Shortly after the incident, authorities arrested two members of the Steubenville High School “Big Red” football team, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, but questions have continued to amount in the months since. Of particular concern, especially to Anonymous, is the lack of legal action taken against party-goers who witnesses the rape, videotaped it and shared images and tweets over social media, including Nodianos. Messages sent over his Twitter account have since been archived to show him mocking the 16-year-old rape victim.“Song of the night is definitely ‘Rape Me’ by Nirvana,” reads one of a few off-color messages sent from Nodianos’ alleged Twitter account after the incident. Members of Knight Sec have since attempted to expose members of Big Red with links to the involvement, and have uncovered a smoking gun with the publishing of the video showing Nodianos making light of the assault. As their independent investigation widens, though, the hacktivists say they’ve uncovered something bigger than just one isolated assault. “The victim had been intentionally drugged with a ‘date rape’ intoxicant. She was photographed and video was taken of her in this condition, and there is evidence that she was hauled in a comatose state to multiple parties – and almost certainly raped by more members of the local high school football team than just the two players who currently stand charged,” reads a post on LocalLeaks. “Despite all this, it looked as though a town rife with corruption, cronyism, illegal gamblingand fixated upon their star high school football team (a major economic revenue engine) were prepared to orchestrate a major cover-up in order to sweep the entire affair under the rug. As this disclosure will document, this cover-up was perpetrated by people in the high school administration, local government and law enforcement.”In the months since the assault, the Big Red community has responding by rejecting allegations made by the media Knight Sec, Anonymous and others. Jim Parks, a supporter of the Steubenville high school sports, has condemned Knight Sec after they compromised his “Roll Red Roll” fansite.“The outrageous claims they made while controlling this site were totally false, completely absurd, and totally unfounded. They were clearly both libelous and slanderous, and were not even intended to reveal truth, but rather simply to get media attention and terrorize the Steubenville community. Innocent people have been greatly harmed,” he writes, but not before deeming Knight Sec “terrorists” and calling out The New York Times for deciding to “aid and abet” Anonymous by following through with an investigation into the rape of a 16-year-old girl.“We wish to make it clear that we will pursue legal justice against the perpetrators of these evil acts and all of those in the media who chose to help them,” Parks writes of the hackers.With the publishing of the Nodianos film, though, he might have his hands full: in the two days after it was first released, the video has already gone viral. Steubenville Police Chief William McCafferty tells CBS affiliate WTRF-TV that the video has been turned over to the prosecutors, in this case the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.