High School Soccer Player Used Broomstick in Horrific Rape of Freshman Boy at Sports Camp, Say Prosecutors
A Massachusetts judge ordered 17-year-old Somerville High School soccer player Galileo Mondol remanded in jail until a dangerousness hearing Friday, after prosecutors revealed that he watched as a 16-year-old student used a broomstick to rape a freshman boy at a sports camp two Sundays ago.
Mondol was arrested Friday along with two unidentified 16-year-old members of the Somerville High School junior varsity soccer team on charges of aggravated rape and assault with intent to rape involving three teenage victims who were attending the annual sports camp at Camp Lenox in Otis, Mass.
"All of us, frankly, are horrified at these allegations," Somerville Public Schools Superintendent Tony Pierantozzi had said last Friday.
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At a court hearing on Tuesday, Assistant Berkshire District Attorney Rachael T. Eramo argued before Central Berkshire District Court Judge Philip A. Beattie that Mondol is a danger and should remain jailed while he awaits trial. Judge Beattie set the dangerousness hearing for Friday while remanding him in jail on $100,000 cash bail, according to Boston.com.
In a summary of the incident, highlighted by Boston.com, Eramo said Mondol and his two other teenage teammates forced their way into a cabin where freshmen were staying and said: "We're going to pick someone. It's going to be you. It's going to be you," while pointing at different students in the room.
One of his 16-year-old teammates then grabbed a broom and forced a freshman to the floor on his hands and knees and used the broom to rape him. Citing witness reports, Eramo said Mondol tried to stop the assault at one point but he changed his mind.
"I want to have a crack at that,'' he reportedly said. "If you do it again, I will lift up the broomstick,'' he is also alleged to have said.
Eyewitnesses said the victim cried and bled in the bathroom after the alleged attack while State Police found blood-stained tissue in the cabin and a brown stain believed to be blood in the bathroom.
An attempt was also reportedly made by Mondol and his teammates to assault two other freshman boys who put up a fight and managed to escape rape. They were, however, allegedly poked on their buttocks with the broomstick according to Eramo.
A witness to the assault also allegedly threatened to report the incident but Mondol reportedly stared the freshman in the eye and said "you better keep your mouth shut" with a grave expression.
Once the camp ended, Mondol and his teammates kept intimidating their victims on Facebook and Twitter to keep them quiet about what happened.
Mondol's defense lawyer, William Korman, argued that the teen was simply in "the wrong place at the wrong time" and highlighted that he tried to stop the assault.
"He was in the cabin and when he saw what was about to occur he said to the two co-defendants, 'Don't do this!' And that's out of the victim's mouth. It's the victim himself who said my client did everything he could to stop this assault," Korman told the Boston Herald.
He said Mondol was "upset that instead of waking up and getting dressed for school on Tuesday, he was "waking up and getting dressed for court."
