CHICAGO — A 15-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted in an attack broadcast on Facebook Live last month had been lured into a basement, repeatedly hit and threatened with a dog attack if she tried to leave, according to reports.
Two boys, ages 14 and 15, have been charged as juveniles in the March attack, which drew national headlines. Police previously said they are looking for at least five or six suspects.
The boys in custody were ordered held in juvenile detention pending trial on charges of criminal sexual assault and distributing child pornography, according to a spokeswoman for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.
They will next appear in court April 21 and 28, respectively.
During a juvenile hearing Tuesday, prosecutors said the victim on March 19 was lured by an acquaintance into a North Lawndale basement, where she was raped and forced to perform oral sex under fear of being attacked by a pit bill, the Sun-Times reported.
The 14-year-old boy is accused of telling the victim she could "have sex the easy way or the hard way," according to the Associated Press.
Both boys in custody are accused of sexually assaulting the girl on camera, filming the attack and later bragging about their actions to other people.
"Both videotaped these egregious actions," Assistant State's Attorney Maha Gardner said in court Tuesday. But "they didn't stop there. They put them up on Facebook for the world to see."
"A life wasn't lost. ... But this is worse for the young woman," Gardner said.
On Sunday, Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson called the case "reprehensible."
The 15-year-old girl was reported missing March 19. On March 21, police announced she had been found by Ogden District officers and reunited with her mother.
"No woman should ever be treated the way this young woman was," Johnson said Sunday at a news conference announcing the arrest.
"The young men responsible, they should be ashamed of themselves. They humiliated themselves, humiliated their families, and now they're going to be held accountable for what they did."
The family of the girl approached Johnson after a news conference March 20, and told him they'd seen her being sexually assaulted by several boys in a video on Facebook Live and showed him stills from the video, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi previously said.
Johnson took the girl's mother aside and called the chief of detectives.
Officers found the girl in the street the next day and she was taken to a hospital and reunited with her mother.
At Sunday's press conference, Johnson decried the inaction of social-media users who viewed the live-streamed video of the assault and failed to act.
"We've seen a couple of acts in this city in the last few months involving social media, and it just disgusts me that people could watch these videos and not pick up the phone and dial 911," Johnson said.
Police said said the girl has since been a victim of "constant social media bullying" that has prolonged her trauma in the aftermath of the assault.
The assault is one of several high-profile crimes recently live-streamed on Facebook in Chicago. Last month, a pregnant woman was recording herself on Facebook Live when a gunman opened fire, wounding her and killing a 2-year-old and a man.
In January, four people were charged with hate crime in the kidnapping and torturing of a mentally disabled suburban man on Facebook Live.
In 2016, a man was live streaming when he was shot and fatally wounded in North Lawndale. Also in 2016 a man taking a selfie video was shot on Facebook. He survived that incident, but was shot to death months later.
