January 7, 2013
By AnomalyThe Ohio State University student who referred to the Steubenville , Ohio rape victim while laughing as “Deader than Trayvon Martin, she is so raped her p-ssy is as dry as the sun” dropped out of school citing threats, after the video went viral.
Michael Nodianos — who I refer to as Laughing Boy — stated in the video, “Why isn’t she waking up? She’s dead,” the teenager says. “They peed on her. That’s how you know she’s dead, because someone pissed on her,” he says and, later in the video, “She is so raped right now.”
Investigators interviewed the 18-year-old at length after being made aware of the video, said Nodianos’s attorney, Dennis McNamara, at a press conference Monday afternoon. McNamara said investigators determined Nodianos was not present when the alleged assault occurred.
“He had no firsthand knowledge of anything,” McNamara said. “There were three witnesses, at least at the location where the alleged crimes occurred, and all three confirmed Michael was not there. He has not been subpoenaed or asked by either side to be a witness in the pending juvenile case.”
McNamara said Nodianos did not know the alleged victim and has “since been told” he was at a house were one of the assaults allegedly occurred.
Yet Nodianos’s comments in the video have continued to haunt Nodianos. His family has received threats, and his Twitter account, email, and Facebook page were all hacked, along with the email accounts of his parents and grandparents, according to McNamara. Someone set up a fake Twitter account claiming to be Nodianos and continued to tweet offensive things about the case from it, he added.
What’s particularly disturbing in the video, is when Nodianos is asked by one of his peers how he would feel if the victim was his sister or daughter. The laughing teenager was insensitive to the reality his friend was trying to enlighten him with.
Nodianos, who was drunk when he made the video, is “ashamed” of his behavior that night, “after some sober reflection,” his attorney s“He sincerely regrets the behavior. He was not raised to act in this manner… it really is just poor judgment.”
McNamara said Nodianos still has an athletic scholarship at OSU but isn’t sure what his future plans at the university are.
It seems to me that some folks are suggesting that activists affiliated with Anonymous have vilified this kid, when actually the 12 minute talk-a-thon video which he stars in is as self-demonizing as it gets — except, no one was supposed to actually see the footage. Otherwise, Nodianos would likely still be in school with a clear lack of conscience, laughing horrifying moments off while trying to play the main role in a bad comedy routine.
I don’t feel bad for this kid. If his attorney is correct and he is truly sorry, then he can express that in a video sans the lousy comedy routine. At least Nodianos learned one lesson before dropping out: Consequences. It’s a shame that the town whose past has been embedded with corruption can’t learn the same. Time will tell. The real victim is the girl who was carted around from party to party while unconscious, then repeatedly raped.
