Just over one year after being convicted of rape, Ma’Lik Richmond is back on a football field.
Richmond, one of the two Steubenville, Ohio, high school football players convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl in a high-profile case last year, returned to the school team Monday, practicing as a wide receiver.
Richmond was released from a juvenile detention center in January after serving nearly 10 months of his one-year sentence. The other convicted player, quarterback Trent Mays, is serving out the remainder of his two-year sentence.
“I feel that we’re really not giving him a second chance. Some may look at it like that,” Steubenville head coach Reno Saccoccia told Fox 28. “We don’t deal in death sentences for juvenile activity, and I just feel that he’s earned a second chance.
“Everything the judicial system of Ohio asked him to do he completed. Everything the school system asked him to do upon his release, he completed — both academically and socially.”
The Ohio High School Athletic Association bylaws state it is up to a school to decide whether or not to allow a student to return to athletics, as long as the “personal conduct” at hand did not involve a an athletic event or an incident with the school.
Ohio Chief Probation Officer Fred Abdalla Jr. told WTRF, “There’s no law against it that states he can’t play. There’s no OHSA rules that they’d be violating, then I think the boy should be allowed to play. Ma’Lik Richmond has done everything the court has asked him since he’s been sentenced.”
A blogger widely credited with helping the case gain national attention, Alexandria Goddard, was disgusted that Richmond had returned to the team.
“I wanted to be shocked, but I think we all knew it was bound to happen,” Goddard wrote in an email to BuzzFeed. “Steubenville City Schools hasn’t really done a lot in the past two years to prove to the world that they don’t tolerate rape culture and allowing a Tier II registered sex offender on the team pretty much solidifies the assumption that they are concerned about wins rather than the safety of young girls or the destruction of rape culture in their area.”
The conviction stems from an August 2012 incident, in which the students were videotaped and photographed dragging and carrying an inebriated girl at a party, making jokes at her expense. Richmond must continue to register as a sex offender every six months for the next 20 years.