A 14-year-old accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old is once again released by an Ohio juvenile court magistrate, according to court documents.
The case involves both a teen and a pre-teen so police are not releasing the names or identifying information about the victim or the alleged attacker.
Magistrate Liz Igoe ruled Monday that the 14-year-old should be released to a parent or guardian and placed on electronic monitoring. Igoe also wrote that the 14-year-old is to have no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 14 until the court’s final decision on June 27.
The state objected to electronic monitoring for the teen, the document reads.
“The person has admitted to the violent rape of an 11-year-old boy. We requested this case be sent to adult court; that request was denied. We requested he be taken into custody pending sentencing; that request was denied. We requested he remain in custody after violating his EMU; that request was denied,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said.
“To allow this offender to remain in the community after what he did and allow him to allow to flaunt the rules of the court is unconscionable. This is not justice for the victim, the victim’s family or the community.”
Prior to his release on Monday, the case went before Judge Kari Bloom in October 2021. Bloom ordered the 14-year-old released on the condition that he stay away from the alleged victim according to Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Amy Clausing.
At the time the condition was set, Bloom said she was unaware that the suspect and victim lived near one another.
“My son is terrified of seeing the boy, knowing the boy is out or anything to that nature, because he is still small and growing in nature, and the boy is right next door to us,” a family member of the alleged victim said Wednesday. “[…]Everybody is in danger when someone who forcibly rapes an 11-year-old is running around in our neighborhoods.”
The 14-year-old violated the stay away order, the prosecutor’s office said
At a hearing, the prosecutor’s office asked that the 14-year-old be held in juvenile detention.
Bloom, with the knowledge that the suspect and victim lived near each other, ordered the teen to his aunt’s home, which is located outside Hamilton County, Clausing said. As a condition of that order, the teen had to wear an electronic monitor.
Clausing said the 14-year-old also violated that order.
Bloom said in a hearing it was not an “ill-willed” violation and that it was based on the monitor either being unplugged or running out of battery.
That hearing ended inconclusively and the 14-year-old was to remain detained until the follow-up hearing on May 23.
Said the family member, “I think it’s sad that the system is falling us as parents and my child as a child, because this what they say we grow up on. They supposed to go to the police and alert the police about things that are going on, and justice will happen. We did that and we aren’t getting any justice.”
Tell us your thoughts...