*The white Idaho high school football player who was charged with sexually assaulting a black, mentally disabled teammate in October 2015, pleaded guilty Friday to a lesser felony charge, and the sex crime charges were dropped.
John R.K. Howard, 19, of Keller, Tex., pleaded guilty to a felony count of injury to a child and will be sentenced to two to three years of probation and up to 300 hours of community service, reports the Twin Falls Times-News. A judge will decide the final sentence in February.
In May, the Idaho attorney general’s office filed sexual assault charges against Howard and two of his teammates at Dietrich High School, alleging that they held the victim down, shoved a coat hanger into his rectum and then kicked the hanger several times. The two other students were charged in juvenile court.
The victim’s family expressed “bitter disappointment and outrage” over the verdict, according to their attorney, R. Keith Roark.
“It’s absolutely preposterous that this kid should walk away with apparently no punishment whatsoever,” Roark told The Washington Post in an interview Monday afternoon. “Everyone is more concerned with these young sociopaths than the victim of their violence.”
Roark said he has protested the decision to the state attorney general’s office and demanded an explanation.
Details of the assault surfaced when the victim’s family filed a lawsuit against the high school seeking $10 million in damages. The lawsuit outlined a long history of racist abuse and bullying against the student, including being “taunted and called racist names by other members of the team which names included ‘Kool-Aid’ ‘chicken eater’ ‘watermelon’ ” and the n-word, the suit said. The victim and his adopted siblings are the only black people in Dietrich, a rural town of 330 in southern Idaho.
Deputy State Attorney General Casey Hemmer said in court that prosecutors would have been able to prove that Howard kicked the coat hanger into the victim’s rectum, according to the Times-News. But Hemmer said the violent assault did not constitute a sex crime, and that is why they allowed Howard to opt for the plea deal.
“Based on continuing investigation throughout this case — interviewing of witnesses, speaking with the victim and getting a better picture of what happened in this case — the state believes this is the appropriate charge,” Hemmer said in court, the Times-News reported. “It was egregious behavior, it caused this victim a lot of suffering, but it is not, in my view, a sex crime, which is why the state has amended this charge. We don’t believe it’s appropriate for Mr. Howard to suffer the consequences of a sex offender, but he still needs to be held accountable.”
Howard, whose uncle is the high school’s basketball coach, was sent to Idaho from Keller, Texas, to live with family members because of behavioral issues, according to the lawsuit from the victim’s family.
We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!
