Chart showing how the Steubenville football team is connected to legal system
Looking for Charges in an Interconnected Town
Of the 60 individuals identified by the attorney general's office as persons of interest, DeWine said 16 people who may have had information refused to talk with investigators. Many of those people are underage. DeWine said, without being asked, that "indictments could be returned and additional charges could be filed." And here's the tricky part: Under Ohio law, if you fail to report a crime, you may be breaking the law.
Ohio Law decrees that 'no person, knowing that a felony has been or is being committed, shall knowingly fail to report such information to law enforcement authorities... Whoever violates division (A) or (B) of this section is guilty of failure to report a crime.
While the juvenile court lessens rape charges to a Category 2 crime, rape is a felony. (This may be news to CNN, where an actual chiron headline today read: "Realizing rape is a crime."
DeWine said at his press conference that, beyond the failure-to-report charge, possible additional charges could investigated include failure to report child abuse, tampering with evidence, and "others."
So who are investigators looking at for this grand jury hearing? Well, Steubenville is a town of 18,000 people, but a lot of those people are connected by way of the football team, the legal system, and especially local law enforcement. The power players in this town know each other. To get a sense of the inner workings, we've expanded on a comprehensive chart from investigative journalist Joey Ortega, with new connections based on news reports and testimony in last week's trial. This map is not proof of any funny business or wrongdoing — not at all — but it does help re-introduce the bigger picture, and you can click the image below to expand:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/03/steubenville-grand-jury/63202/
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