TWIN FALLS — Three boys involved in a June assault on a 5-year-old girl at the Fawnbrook Apartments in Twin Falls pleaded guilty Tuesday to felonies.
The victim’s family and their lawyer approved the settlements reached in each of the three cases, Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs said in a statement.
“I am pleased that we were able to resolve this case in a way that was approved and agreed to by the victim’s family,” Loebs said. “This continues to be a serious and sad case, but it was resolved properly.”
“We agreed to the plea bargains. That by no means implies my clients were, or are, fully satisfied with the outcome of these cases or the prosecuting attorney,” Mark Guerry, the attorney representing the victim’s family, said in emails to the Idaho Statesman.
“After 10 months their right to some form of justice was long overdue. ... They were prepared to testify at a trial or enter into to plea agreements months ago. More importantly, no convictions or mere words in statements could ever mitigate the unrelenting trauma and grief their little daughter now suffers as a result of this vicious sexual assault.”
The incident touched off months of turmoil in Twin Falls after the story was spun into a fake news account that exaggerated or flat-out falsified many of the details, including that a knife was present, the attack was perpetrated by a Syrian gang of adult men, that a rape had occurred and that the attack was celebrated by the perpetrators’ families as city officials orchestrated a cover-up.
In fact, police and prosecutors said, there was no rape, no knife was present, and the incident involved young boys. Officials characterized the incident as a sexual assault and say each say each agency involved followed proper protocol.
The boys were charged not long after the June 2 incident, and later that month their families were evicted from the apartment complex.
A GoFundMe page started by the mother of the victim has raised more than $72,000, with a goal to raise $100,000. The mother, who refers to her family in the third person when posting on the site, added her most recent update Tuesday morning.
“Today is the day!” the post said. “We find out what happens and when the kids start there (sic) sentence and what they get charged with. Please pray!!!! Also if you can share the campaign and donate so we can reach the goal for this family. They deserve justice and praying that happens today.”
After an investigation, two boys ages 14 and 10 were detained and charged. A third boy involved in the incident, age 7, was charged later. The youngest boy is from Iraq and the two older boys, who are brothers, are from Eritrea, an African country. The boys are from refugee families, but its unclear how long they’ve been in the community.
What actually happened during the incident remains unclear because the case was sealed to the public, typical in juvenile cases, especially those involving allegations of sexual misconduct.
Prosecutors said one of the boys touched the girl in the laundry facilities of Fawnbrook, a low-income housing complex in Twin Falls, while another boy recorded the assault on a cellphone video camera.
One boy pleaded guilty to felony exploitation of a child and misdemeanor battery. A second boy pleaded guilty of aiding and abetting felony lewd conduct and aiding and abetting misdemonear battery. The third boy pleaded guilty to a charge of accessory to the commission of a felony.
The boys will be sentenced at a later date. Loebs declined to say what the possible sentences are in the case.
The 14- and 10-year-old boys charged in the assault were released from juvenile custody in late June.
“As I said last summer, just like with any other case this is going to be handled by the justice system, and this is the next step in that process,” Mayor Shawn Barigar said shortly after hearing the news Tuesday.
From the beginning, refugee opponents accused police of mishandling the investigation. Those claims garnered the attention of national figures on the far right, including Brigitte Gabriel, head of Act for America, who came to Twin Falls to speak about what she perceives as a coordinated Muslim plan to take over Western societies.
But Police Chief Craig Kingsbury said Tuesday his officers handled the case like they do any other report of lewd conduct with a child.
“I’ve always felt that we followed proper protocol and procedure,” Kingsbury said.
In June, the police chief outlined the way such cases are generally handled and said his officers don’t interview juvenile victims or perpetrators of sex crimes. Those interviews are left to “properly trained forensic interviewers” at St. Luke’s Children at Risk Evaluation Services.
“The questions and question formulation when interviewing young victims is so important,” the chief said in June. “We don’t want to do anything that’s going to re-victimize — we don’t want this child to have to tell that story more than once, if we can help it — and we also don’t want to do anything that’s going to jeopardize the prosecution if an officer or detective were to improperly formulate questions.”
“There are no winners or losers in cases like this,” Kingsbury said Tuesday. “I think we just need to continue to focus on the victim, and victims in these types of incidents, especially here in April, child abuse prevention month. We need to do right by all our child victims.”
The assault happened in the wake of local debate over whether to close the College of Southern Idaho Refugee Center and at a time when refugee resettlement was a topic of debate in the presidential race and internationally, and the story spread quickly in the right-wing and anti-Muslim blogosphere. Authorities released some details about the case — a highly unusual step in a sexual assault case in which everyone involved is a minor — in an apparent effort to quell the outcry and counter inaccurate versions of the story that were circulating.
Many of these sources accused the city, law enforcement and local media of trying to cover up what had happened, and city officials were inundated with angry phone calls and emails and a handful of violent threats. Chobani, whose factory employs many refugees, was another target of anti-refugee anger, with some seeking to link the refugee program’s existence to the labor needs of Chobani and other large local employers.
By the end of the summer, Lee Stranahan, a reporter for the conservative news website Breitbart, and Julie DeWolfe, a vocal resettlement critic in Twin Falls, started a group aimed to fight globalism with populism and planned to start a “microbusiness incubator.” But plans for the “Make Your Hometown Great Again” group apparently never came to fruition.
College of Southern Idaho Refugee Center director Zeze Rwasama said Tuesday afternoon he hadn’t heard the latest news about the Fawnbrook case.
But he said the center took the case “very seriously” and condemns that kind of behavior.
“Whatever happened is not what we — as people helping the refugees resettle — something that we would think that it’s OK,” Rwasama said. “It is not.”
After the Fawnbrook case, the Refugee Center partnered with a behavioral agency to hold therapy groups with school-aged refugee children who’d recently arrived in Twin Falls “so they understand that type of behavior isn’t acceptable,” Rwasama said.
It was part of a program children regularly attend on Wednesdays after school.
Whenever something happens like the Fawnbrook case, the Refugee Center’s action is to “create a program that would give some more education to the kids,” Rwasama said. “We want to prevent any behavior that may be violating the law.”
Clarification: An earlier version of this story identified Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya as a Muslim. While Ulukaya was raised in a Kurdish village in Turkey, a Muslim-majority country, he has not publicly identified as a Muslim.
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And you seriously want these immigrant families in YOUR neighborhood?
sanjosemike
Good job Grant, thank you.
Well looky here...the wheels of justice are indeed still turning. Might take longer then wed like sometimes but all the hoopla about the cover up etc. proves to be false. I wonder how many nay sayers will now eat crow??
This is absolutely disgusting!!! We should be helping Americans first off. Why are we helping other countries in the first place when we are TRILLIONS dollars in debt? What is wrong with America today??? We can't even take care of "us" (AMERICANS/VETERANS) but we can help ILLEGAL/DISGUSTING refugees who RAPE toddlers and their parents praise them for it???? What a bunch of idiots in Idaho... I am beyond disgusted!
What a shame you have such a low opinion of the United States of America. We are an amazing country, capable of doing many things at the same time.
The thing that stands out to me the most is the times news ability to spin a story how they see fit. I think back to the Dietrich assault case and compare it to this story. What a difference in reporting when your own agenda is at stake. You down play the heck out of the fawnbrook assault because you know the affect possible towards refugees and you almost protect them with your writing. The accused didn't have a chance in the public view in the Dietrich case and you pushed and pushed and pushed until that little town was in disarray. Why didn't you report these similar cases with any neutrality. Your job is to get facts and report. Not take sides. Your paper is despicable.
If we're trying to push a pro-refugee agenda, reporting this story in more detail than any other news outlet and running at the top of our front page sure is a funny strategy. I'm happy to discuss news decisions and be transparent about our reporting process, whatever. Give me a call if you want to discuss: 735-3255.
Oh Matt, shame on you."...push a pro-refugee agenda..."? Your memory is very short or selective, sir. Times-News, and by extension you and Mr. Quast, sponsored the "Community Panel on the Refugee Program" a few Septembers ago, remember? As an attendee to this pro-refugee dog-and-pony show sponsored by you, attendees were encouraged to submit questions to the pro-refugee panel. However, these questions were cherry-picked by you and then submitted to the pro-refugee panel. It was a joke. You might as well have had Hamdi Ulakaya and Lavinea Limon themselves up there.
The thing that people like you, commenter "Angie", and ZeZe Rwasama don't recognize or worse yet, refuse to acknowledge, is that rape and/or sexual assault (as TPTB want to believe in this case) is totally ingrained in the Muslim culture. It is a form of control and conquest that has been used by Mohammadens for the last 1400 years. No matter how many "behavioral" geniuses that Rwasama brings in, something that inbred cannot be corrected within generation; these "boys" were just doing what they have seen and been taught on how to treat infidels. Rwasama knows he has a problem or else why would the Refugee Center be going to this expense?
The whole tenor of this piece and of most "reporting" by Times-News, is just dripping of pro-refugee sentiment, which is obvious to all who can read.
And why don't you discuss your "transparent" decisions here on the comments page, instead of hiding behind a phone, it would be most refreshing.
There will be no compromise. Period. End of story.
I am Lalek.
Matt, Lalek has his own agenda and as such is totally oblivious to reality. Which makes his thinking compromised.
The never ending story
I Am Fisher
Mr. Christensen we know you wouldn't sell nearly as many papers if you did your job differently; but it's rather disingenuous to suggest you haven't done as much as possible to stir this pot and stir it vigorously. You inject race in your descriptions of perps and victims alike in stories where there is no cause to do so, and had you left this Fawnbrook story -- about children -- out of your paper entirely, or at least not made it racial, the community might be safer. Now there are people threatening Bill Colley, for goodness sake, as well as anyone who might appear as 'other'; so you've endangered your befriended refugees in your process. Your media, both locally and nationally, are all in need of a reality check. You have called anyone who suggests caution regarding the influx of refugees racists, xenophobes, bigots -- tumbleweed has it memorized, sorry if I'm misquoting you -- so just stifle the false deprecation of your 'funny strategy' and pick up your own brass. You can claim your news stories are 'just the facts' all you want but you have injected sensationalism and then gone further by running outlandish opinion pieces in conjunction with them. Own that.
'Whatever' I am in complete agreement. Well said.
It’s confusing really.
Set these people down here in one of the most conservative area’s in one of the most conservative states.
Meanwhile, Ca. Or. Wa., are threatening to leave the Union because they want them there.
This kind of lawlessness isn’t uncommon in these States.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out if we must take these folks where they should be re-settled.
those young boys need some help as well and that little girl.
I moved from an area that promoted homeless camps and had a high number of mideasterners who clung to their old way of life. For the professionally homeless, local churches would open up their parking lots to 50 -60 tents at a time. This area also had a high number of H-1B Visa holders, who would then bring in their extended families. The end result was that I had to install multiple security features on my home. I still found broken door handles at the back of the house, outside faucets would be turned on, an out building would be occupied, they would camp in the woods behind my house and so on. I also had my neck grabbed and wrenched around by a mideastern guy who didn't like that I wasn't his religion. Women in their all black tents would be hateful toward those who did not dress as they did. Plus, more incidents...
For all of those who are for immigrants who do not really want to be American, please post your home address on signs at the main highways and at airports and stock up your refrigerator.
You wanna keep importing other nations' criminals, fine. But don't you DARE accuse me of being a bigot if I and my family go out of our way stay away from them. I will NOT submit to the violent, left leaning liberals who resort to name calling when people's natural survival tendencies kick in to steer clear of danger.
Just calling a spade a spade here, but you sound like a bigot.
Oh and one more thing. The brilliant politcos in Germany just granted the 270,000 Syrian refugees there, permission to bring in all their family members. I'm quite sure that there is no way that this humanitarian gesture will be abused! Yea, right.
zerohedge.com/print/592442
Better get your genuine German beer, pretzels and Lederhousen now before it is outlawed in favor of Tamar Hindi, Halal food and burkas.
There will be no compromise. Period. End of story.
I am Lalek.
You're so cute to try to argue! LOL. But, you really should log off your parent's account and resume your Sponge Bob cartoons, m'kay?
Where do these children who are guilty of sexual assault on a child go to school? How can their neighbors and classmates protect themselves if they don't know about their crimes?
The convictions were great news for the community and the victim. Thank you local police for doing your job and getting this done. I am stunned by this newspaper article and bias against the victim. The devastating part; this is only about money and the liberal agenda. The Muslims only represent money to the City, Schools, and the factory Jobs. In return, the City Fathers were willing to sacrifice our children for financial gain. I have worked in Saudi; they have more money, space and the ability to take in there own. Further, their culture is almost 100% Muslim. They have the Schools, Mosques, and a social system to give these people jobs and a happy life; with their own people and laws. Lets all focus on cutting off the Federal Money, and call the press out for what they are; Liars! Lets vote in people that put our Country, Children, and Values FIRST! The truth finally came out, sad the reporters were trying to make themselves right rather than protect a scared little girl. One word to the reporters; "Snowflakes". Thx and god speed; Chainsaw
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