Aug 15, 2006 1:30 pm US/Central
Youths Accused Of Raping Girl They Met On MySpace
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Tony Pacheco and Angel Alverio have been charged in connection to the assault. (File)
CBS
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MySpace, a Web site where people can post pages about themselves and contact both people they know and strangers as "friends," was how the teens met the girl. (File)
CBS
Four youths have been accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl they met on the social networking site myspace.com, and three have been charged.
Three teens and one man were arrested Sunday and charged with sexually assaulting the 14-year-old girl on July 24, reports WBBM-TV's Kristyn Hartman.
Bond was set for two of them – Tony Pacheco, 17, and Angel Alverio, 18 – at $400,000, police said. A 15-year-old boy is being held at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in connection with the case.
MySpace, a Web site where people can post pages about themselves and contact both people they know and strangers as "friends," was how the teens met the girl.
After making contact with the 14-year-old Chicago girl on MySpace, the three met up with and went to the 15-year-old boy's home in the 4800 block of West Walton Street, where they all drank alcoholic beverages and played video games, according to prosecutors.
The three teens and a fourth co-offender, who is not charged at this time, met the girl on MySpace and turned their computer chat into an agreement to meet in person at the 15-year-old boy's home, according to a spokesperson for the Cook County state's attorney's office.
The girl became ill and passed out, and she woke up three separate times to find herself being victimized, authorities said. Police said at least two of the boys raped her.
The girl ultimately ended up in an alley two miles away, at 3253 W. North Ave., where someone found her around 3 p.m., police said. She was treated and released from Norwegian-American Hospital.
A Cook County state's attorney's office spokesman on Tuesday could not say who the MySpace accounts belonged to, what the circumstances were or if the parents knew.
Alverio's girlfriend, Evelyn Garcia, defended him vehemently.
"I know he didn't do it. I know he didn't do it. I've been with my boyfriend for three years," Garcia said. "I know he's not that type of man. I know he's not going to lower himself to have sex with another girl out of nowhere."
Alverio had been the captain of the football team at Senn High School, at 5900 N. Glenwood Ave. in the Edgewater neighborhood, but Chicago Public Schools representatives said Alverio is now an inactive student at Senn. Pacheco is an active student there, public schools officials said.
Police are apparently searching for a fourth person.
No one from MySpace was immediately available for comment.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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