by Patrick H. Moore
What is it about soccer players, bullies and broomsticks? I ask this in all seriousness. ABC News reports that a Boston area 17-year-old, Galileo Mondol, is one of three Somerville, Massachusetts High School soccer players charged in connection with the broomstick rape of a younger teen Aug. 25 in a cabin at Camp Lenox in Otis, which the school had rented for their annual soccer camp. This is hardly the first case of this reported by the media over the past few years. In fact, approximately one year ago, there was an almost identical case in a suburban town not far from where I live in Los Angeles county.
The accused, Mondol, was released on $100,000 bail Friday and barred from associating with the alleged victims and witnesses in his case.
The prosecutors have stated that Mondol and the other teens raped one freshman with a broom and tried to rape two others. Mondol has pleaded not guilty. The names of the other suspects have not been released because they are 16.
On Friday at a hearing in Pittsfield, Judge Fredric Rutberg granted Mondol bail, saying he isn’t a danger to the public. I’m not so sure I agree with the judge, but on the other hand, bail is a constitutional right that needs to be supported. To his credit, the judge set release conditions for Mondol that include a curfew and GPS monitoring.
Naturally, Mondol’s lawyer, William Korman, claims his client had nothing to do with the alleged rape and shouldn’t have been subjected to the dangerousness hearing. He insisted that the evidence against Mondol is thin.
The prosecutor Rachel Eramo opposed bail for Mondol and argued that he should remain in custody pending trial because of his “cruel conduct,” which, according to Eramo, including carrying out the crimes in a crowded room and warning those present not to talk.
It does appear that witness accounts vary. The victim of the rape has stated that Mondol wasn’t physically involved in attacking him. According to Eramo, however, another victim who was assaulted but not raped told investigators that Mondol helped another defendant physically rape the victim with the broomstick. She stated the others acknowledged that Mondol was present and encouraged the abuse.
Eramo said the trio “were laughing after the assault occurred,” and that Mondol threatened one boy who said he was going to tell on them, “You better keep your mouth shut.”
Neither she nor Korman offered any context for why the three youths were allegedly attacked during the event for the Somerville High soccer team that was meant “to have team-building exercises and for players to get to know one another.”
When Mondol and his two co-defendants first entered the alleged victims’ cabin, Eramo said they told their alleged victims, “We’re going to pick someone. It’s you, no it’s you, no it’s you,” before grabbing one boy and forcing him to his hands and knees.
When the broom was introduced, Eramo said Mondol initially told the other two to stop, but later chimed in, “I want to have a crack at that” and other remarks.
Korman, who stated Mondol “was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” later suggested to reporters the troubled teen is the prosecution’s scapegoat.
“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 said.
Mondol faces one count of aggravated rape of a child, two counts of assault with intent to rape a child, one count of indecent assault and battery, three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and three counts of intimidation of a witness or other person.
Korman also stated that Somerville High School is in the process of expelling Mondol and has banned him from school athletic events.
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I am rarely surprised by murder or rape as it ordinarily transpires. Nor I am surprised by the sexual abuse of children which I know is distressingly common. But these broomstick hazing rapes leave me completely dumbfounded. I understand that the big kids on the team are going to haze the younger kids; no surprise there. But broomstick rape? Isn’t that a little extreme?
Children are encouraged to play sports because it is supposed to be a clean-cut activity — a means, among other things, of keeping adolescents out of trouble. Yet, the reality is that incidents like the Camp Lenox broomstick rape are all too common. What surprises me is the fact that Mondol looks rather vulnerable in his own right, as if he could just as easily be a victim as a victimizer.