Four North Miami Senior High School Students Face Felony Sexual Battery Charges After Gang Raping Mentally Disabled Girl


Four high school students are now facing charges of felony sexual battery after gang raping a mentally disabled girl at the beginning of the 2015 school year, according to the Miami Herald.

At the end of the school day, a North Miami Senior High School student approached a teen girl, who was mentality disabled, and told her that she was pretty. He then lured her to a janitor’s closet, where three other teen boys were waiting.

They each “forced her to perform oral, anal, and vaginal sex acts,” and when the gang rape was over, they told her not tell anyone. But as the five teens were walking out of the closet, they came face-to-face with a janitor who the teen girl told she had just been raped.

Miami-Dade teens Derek Bynum, 18, Kenoldo Alexis, 17, David Lombard, 17, and Steven Joseph, 15, were arrested by school police and charged with felony sexual battery on a person with mental disabilities in mid-January, according to the Daily Mail.

One of the teens, Bynum, admitted to forcing the teen girl to perform oral sex but remembers “telling the victim to stop because she did a terrible job.” He also stated that he was unaware that the teen girl was mentally disabled.

Bynum pleaded not guilty to the rape charges and later wrote a note to the judge, which stated as follows.

“I feel like I’m being tried and accused of something I did not do. All I want to do is graduate from high school, make my family proud and be somebody. But, this case, I feel like it will ruin my chances and my dreams.”

At the end of the note, he wrote, “I’m sorry. I’m really a good kid.”

Before the rape allegations, Bynum had been expelled from school due to sexual harassment claims and was placed in an alternative school, where he ran into the victim during a job training program.

“The discovery process is ongoing. We’re trying to get to the bottom of what, if anything, happened — and all the clients remain and are presumed innocent,” stated Matthew Ladd, who is Lombard’s attorney.

Attorney’s for the other suspects in the case opted not to make any statements.

In a statement, Miami-Dade school district stated, “While we struggle to understand the senseless depravity of this isolated but disturbing student incident — we commend the deliberate and swift actions of Miami-Dade Schools Police in apprehending the alleged perpetrators.”

“Our thoughts continue to be with the victim and her family.”

A trial date has only been set for Lombard on July 13.

A defense attorney stated that if the four teens are found guilty of gang raping the mentally disabled teen, they could face up to 30 years behind bars.

[Image courtesy of Pool / Getty Images]

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