Maryland HS football players face life in prison for alleged locker-room attack

Four Maryland HS students charged as adults in locker room assault

Reports reveal four Maryland high school football players are accused of "astonishingly cruel" sexual assaults on four teammates inside their school's locker room, and are now being charged as adults.

Four Maryland 15-year-olds are out on bail but face life in prison after being charged as adults with first-degree rape in a locker room attack.

Prosecutors say the Damascus High School students assaulted four 14-year-olds before junior varsity football practice on Halloween. They say the teens restrained the victims, pulled down their pants and raped or attempted to rape them with a broomstick.

One freshman tried to escape the room but was allegedly blocked, the report said. An alleged victim told police that two players "threw him on the floor" and held his feet down, authorities said. He reportedly said he and was "poked in his buttocks with the wooden broom." Police said the three others were attacked in a similar way, Fox 5 DC reported.

"Victim C said after they finished with him, they proceeded to Victim A where they pulled Victim A's sweatshirt over the top of his head, punched him in the face, knocked him on his back and stomped on him," investigators said in an arrest document.

Police reportedly said in court papers that one victim asked an attacker to stop but was told it was "tradition."

The alleged assaults came to light after a father found his son sobbing in his room later that night, the Fox 5 DC report said.

Fox 5 DC reported Jean Claude Abedi, Kristian Jamal Lee, Will Smith and Caleb Thorpe were released on Monday. A fifth teen is facing lesser second-degree rape charges as a juvenile.

Defense attorney Daniel Wright called it "a hazing incident that went to an extreme."

Prosecutor John McCarthy rejected that, saying "these are crimes."

The Associated Press contributed to this report

True Crime