Two former Troy University students have each been sentenced to ten years in prison for raping a drugged woman in broad daylight on a Florida beach as hundreds of people on spring break partied around them.
Delonte Martistee, 22, and Ryan Austin Calhoun, 23, were arrested and tried for the March 2015 drugging and rape of a woman lying on a Panama City, Florida, beach. The pair was found guilty and this month were sentenced to ten years in prison for the crime, the Daily Mail reports.
The strongest evidence against the pair were multiple cell phone videos taken from several angles. They show the two suspects physically assaulting the victim, who was obviously lying unresponsive on the sand.
During the trial, the victim said she was unaware of what was being done to her and thought someone had drugged her drink before the assault. She also testified that she was unconscious for so long that she was not even sure she was raped; therefore, she never reported the incident.
Though the victim never reported her own assault, the pair was arrested after Troy University police accidentally discovered the cell phone video while investigating an unrelated case. During the separate investigation, the video was found on a suspect’s cell phone, prompting an investigation into the assault.
Eventually, police tracked down cell phone video of the incident from a variety of angles taken by other people present on the scene that day.
“This act was encouraged by the crowd and unbelievably by the victim’s boyfriend, but there is no excuse for your actions,” Circuit Judge James Fensom told the convicts. “This incident was reprehensible and, on your part, a big mistake. … It is fortunate we no longer have the Spring Break atmosphere we had in the past.”
Delonte Martistee forfeited a sports scholarship in track and field as a result of his crime, and Ryan Austin Calhoun lost any chance of completing his sports management degree.
But prosecutors said the convicted men showed no remorse for their actions.
“There was very little remorse coming from that stand — other than remorse that they got caught,” prosecutor Christa Diviney said of the convicted men.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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