We begin tonight keeping them honest in the eastern ohio state of steubenville. Our program tonight is not about them. Its about two members of the local High School Football team. Hometown heroes now charged with raping a teenage girl back in august. Its about young witnesses who instead of doing what good people do took video and some of those pictures and was leaked leaked online and its about those who attacked the alleged victim. They have downplayed what happened because critics say they care so much about the local team and so little about won of their own local daughters. The good people of steubenville care. This is not about them. Poppy harlow begins our coverage. Reporter on the night of august 11th, teenagers gathered to celebrate the end of september. The first day of school was two weeks away. By many accounts, there was heavy drinking going on for most of the night spread out over several different parties. It seems that there was more than that, far more. Tweets, photos, and videos possibly document a crime from that night. An alleged Sexual Assault of a seemingly intoxicated, unconscious underaged teenage girl by members of the High School Football team. An assault that other partygoers allegedly watched and later shared details online. This tweet from a partygoer reads, song of the night is definitely rape me by nirvana. Other tweets call the girl sloppy and talk about a dead body, referring to the girls state of unconsciousness. One tweet even refers to the fact that the girl may have been urinated on. Though there is no evidence that actually happened. Three days after the party filed the girls parents came forward and filed a report of alleged Sexual Assault. They came with a flash drive and incriminating tweets and many of the postings were soon taken down. The police chief in steubenville said he asked for any witnesses to come forward of any details that they saw that night but received almost no responses. On august 22nd, two 16yearold members of the football team, trent mays and Malik Richmond were arrested. They were later charged with rape and mays was also charged with disseminating photographs of a nude minor. The arrest created a fissure in the community. Some came to the boys defense saying they were unfairly and too quickly accused. And others were relieved, tired, they said, that everything goes of the culture of the popular Football Players. Mays lawyer denies a rape occurred and says he will challenge whether any possible Sexual Activity was consensual. Youre a football player, you get to do anything you want, as long as you have a winning season. Reporter a blogger and former steubenville resident looked into this story after hearing that High School Football players were involved. Goddard found most of the online postings and reposted them on her website before they were taken down. I found i went through the twitter accounts and i found very disturbing messages, basically laying out a timeline of what happened that evening and found the cache of the youtube video, just found all of the social media which told the story of what happened that night. Greetings citizens of the world. We are anonymous. Reporter then, on december 23rd, the internet Hacker Group Anonymous got involved, threatening to release information on the High School Football players involved in the incident unless a public apology was made to the allege victim by january 1st. We will not sit tightly by and watch a group of young men who will turn to rape as a game or sport get the pass because of athletic ability and smalltown luck. You now have the world looking directly at you. Reporter the deadline passed without an apology and anonymous posted this girl seemingly unconscious being cared by her hands and feet by two males. Cnn cannot verify that this is a photo of the alleged victim. They also posted this 12minute video where partygoers talk about the alleged assault and talk about the girls condition. Even at one point saying she must have died because she didnt move during the alleged assault. What if that was your daughter . But it isnt. If that was my daughter, i wouldnt care. Id just let her be dead. Poppy harlow is joining me live from steubenville. I know you had a chance to talk to the chief of police in this town. Whats see saying about all of this to you . Reporter well, hes incredibly disturbed as many are. He was not allowed to talk about the details of the investigation, which is still ongoing. These two young men will go to trial on february 13th but this is what he told me disturbs him most. The thing i found disturbing is depending on who actually was there, why didnt somebody stop it . I mean, you simply dont do that. I mean, its its not done. Reporter its important, ashleigh, to point out obviously these two men are innocent until found guilty. Again, theyre going to stand trial in about a month. But obviously hes sickened that no one stepped in here, if indeed these allegations are true. But from a lot of the reporting, poppy, not everyone is sickened by this and i know youve had a chance to be in that town all day long. Is it tense . What does it feel like there . What are people saying . Reporter its depressing. People feel like theres a black cloud over their town. I met a mother in front of the local school today because the Elementary School is in the same building as the high school. She was pulling her first grade child out, ashleigh, because she felt there was so Much Negative focus on the town of this school, she was worried about the safety of her child. I spoke with a lot of local Business Owners and one of them explained to me how it feels. Hes lived here for more than 70 years. The buzz that keeps coming about is that steubenville is a bad place, things are being covered up, more people should be arrested. And i feel thats all unjustly so. Reporter why . Because i think that to condemn an entire city for something that happened is not its not right to condemn a school, an entire school and all of the kids that go there for something that took place along a few students is still not right. Reporter he said to me, ashleigh, feels like this town is being looked at like penn state in the wake of that scandal. I do want to tell you that i spoke today with the father of one of the Football Players on that team and he told me, quote, he said to me, it has divided people to take a position on an incident that may not have even occurred. The alleged rape. So there you have some questioning if this is even true. Ashleigh . Well, that will certainly be discussed in a court of law. Poppy harlow, thank you for that. Our Susan Candiotti has more on the latest details of the investigation. She joins me live now. Listen, it doesnt matter what people say. It matters what the police have and what evidence exists. What have you been able to find out about the gathering of that evidence . Well, we wont find out for sure until its presented at trial if it begins, as expected, next month. The latest im hearing, ashleigh, at least a dozen by a prosecutors and police have been able to recover at least a dozen phones and ipads by a team of specialists. Now, the police chief told me that they got back what they could get back, saying that because there have been reports that some of the cell phone videos and or photos were deleted by some of the people who own them. However, there is also information that other information was able to be retrieved by these specialists. So the police chief tells me that they did get some evidence from the phones. And is there an issue about consent . I mean, the photograph that we saw in poppys piece was just repulsive. Theres no way anybody in that condition could consent to any of the allegations. But is consent an issue for this case . It will be an issue, according to one of the Defense Attorneys who represents trent mays, one of the 16yearolds who is charged. Now, he maintains that no rape occurred. The lawyer speaking on behalf of his client indicates to me that he will challenge whether any possible Sexual Activity was consensual. He says that mays and the alleged victim in this case are boyfriend and girlfriend. Well, all of that is being contradicted, of course, by prosecutors who had a probable cause hearing last october told the court, in their words, that the defendants treated the alleged victim like a, quote, a toy and as they put it, we dont have to prove that she said no. We just have to prove that they are doing things to her. Shes not moving. Shes not responsive. And the evidence is consistent and clear, as they put it. And extraordinarily disturbing, i might add. Susan candiotti, thank you. I also want to talk more about this notion that people, some people, witnessed and not only did not do the right thing, they did some of the worst things imaginable. Dr. Drew pinsky joins us now along with Rosalind Wiseman who has been dealing with teen boys and Group Behavior for her new book masterminds and wingmen and our senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin. Rosalind, let me begin with you. Posting these things online, you dont have to tell your children that youre not allowed to rape for them to know that you are not allowed to rape. So what is it about teen boys and again these are allegations but what is it about the teen boys that they would think its okay to do this and for those who didnt do it to post it and brag about it or joke about it . Well, i think theres a minority of boys who think this is okay and a lot more boys who have no idea what to do about it. And sometimes boys laugh because they are uncomfortable and they are feeling like i have no idea what to do and the reason they dont know what to do is two reasons and one that i think is most important that is going on here. These boys feel if they said something about it, they would not be believed or the adults in the community would not take care of it. And what im hearing from these people is even if its not rape. Lets just say thats not the case. Do you actually want boys to conduct themselves and have relationships with girls and talk about girls in this way . As a parent of two boys, i would be so fundamentally ashamed of myself as a mother if my boys talked about girls and women like this, let alone what they did, whatever you want to call it. So for me, as somebody who cares about boys, who works with boys, who knows that most of them want to do the right thing, what we have got to understand is that what its looking like to me is that theres a lot of boys in this community who do not have faith in the adults, that they will do the right thing. They have taught them the basic necessities and rules of how you conduct yourself. And just to sort of dovetail off of that, dr. Drew, jump in here. I know that you have a very strong opinion about alcohol and how that fuels the flames but let me tell you, alcohol has been around for a long time and this is one of those stories that sort of beats the rest. Yes. We should all be disgusted and we should all be scared to death because heres what all of us that are parents are standing here doing, not my kid. But the fact of the matter is we live in a world that we dont know that, pornography has been raining down on these kids and they are treating particularly women, these young men, as objects because thats what they get on the internet these days and unless you actively parent against that, you could be stuck with this. So, drew wait, ashleigh. Any adverse outcome, you find alcohol and drugs. Whether its rape, stds, unwanted pregnancies, whatever it is, its alcohol and we need to become much more aggressive on the alcohol issue. The New York Times reported the genesis was a very big end of summer party at a coachs house that had a full bar and little plastic glasses provided. Certainly there was a lot of alcohol. I told my kids, if they go to a party where a parent is doing that, im going to call the sheriffs. Because they are accountable for this. Listen, they will see civil suits in this, make no mistake. I see this a story down the line. Go ahead, rosalind. The thing is that coaches are so meaningful to kids. They are such incredible role models and the coaches that i work with and there are some extraordinary coaches know that they are teaching boys so much more than coaching on the field, that they are teaching boys what it means to be a man. And so what im thinking is that the coach failed these children in the most fundamental way possible and for the parents out there, when youre thinking about what do you want to teach your sons, it is not good enough, in my experience, parents are saying to boys four things. They are saying, be a gentleman but they are not really saying what that looks like and they are also saying things like, dont get her pregnant, dont get an std. If you do something, dont do something stupid and if you do something stupid, dont get caught. This is what boys are telling me that their parents are telling them. On the subject of coaches why are we telling them that . The New York Times sent one of their reporters to ask this coach, the head coach why werent these players benched after these charges and the response they got im going to quote the times on this you made me mad now, youre going to get yours and if you dont get yours, somebody close to you will. And so this is the idolized head coach of this team. Jeffrey toobin, there were other voices, clearly, there were lots of photographs that included boys. How do you tell the difference between a conspirator, somebody who also needs to be charged and somebody who is a bystander who doesnt have a legal duty to respond . This story is really only a little bit about law. Its mostly about values and culture and parenting. Because the rapists, if they are rapists, can be prosecuted and certainly the sheriff can try to gather as much evidence as possible. Obviously the best thing would be if there were photographs, some sort of recordings like that. But the Larger Community that protects people who rape, that gives kids alcohol, most of that is beyond the reach of the law. The kids who are laughing, the kids who are saying stupid things. Not in california. Well, giving the alcohol, youre right about that, drew. That is a crime. But the kids who are laughing and theres a 12minute video online about kids saying stupid things. I dont see that as a crime. I see that as a real stupid, bad kid. But thats not something that the law can or probably should get involved in. No. Right. Its a clarion call for parents to be careful about whats happening to their kids because of the culture we live in. Think about the world were living in, jeffrey. Thats exactly right. This speaks volumes about our culture and its not about that little town. Its something that we as parents have to Pay Attention to. Ive seen plenty of prosecutions, by the way, of people who think they are posting a cute picture of their girlfriend and they get slapped with child sex offenses, child pornography suits and they end up being sex offenders for life and these are teenagers. Is that something that these kids who are involved in posting these alleged crimes could face . Its possible. And, remember, one of the two defendants already is charged with distributing a photograph of an underaged could he end up being a registered sex offender for life . Of course. Hes also being charged with rape. That would make him a sex offender. If he beats those charges, you cant necessarily beat the charges when they have your phone and you posted something. Thats true. But the legal aspect of this is actually fairly straightforward. You know, you find out you get the victims testimony, you get as many witnesses as you can, but this story is so much bigger than that and so much more complicated because most of what appalls us, what the police chief is talking about, is something that morale cannot its something that the law cannot reach. Rosalind, the police chief says that he has been struggling and begging for witnesses to come forward and help in this investigation and so far it looks as though only two or three teammates have come forward and have ended up being prosecutorial witnesses in this case. Am i crazy to think that thats crazy, that people are not coming forward . Or am i naive . No, you are not. Whats happening is that for good reason and i dont know what that reason is but i know from working with kids for a long time that they are not coming forward for a long time because they think if they come forward they will be the ones who are punished. They dont have confidence in the adults in the community that they he will do right by them. I am begging parents, begging them who are in in community, if you say its just a fluke, just a thing that got out of control, just a couple of bad kids, let me tell you, you are wrong. This is not a little glimpse into their life. Its a window. Dr. Drew pinsky and rosalind, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. I wish we could talk under different circumstances. Coming up next, a whole other story. They swear in a Brand New Congress and the question is are we all going to be swearing at the Brand New Congress soon . Possibility of more budget showdowns to come. Yay. All that when 360 continues. Aig . We said we were going to turn it around, and we did. Woman were helping joplin, missouri, come back from a devastating tornado. Man and now were helping the east coast recover from hurricane sandy. Were a leading Global Insurance company, based right here in america. Weve repaid every dollar america lent us. Everything, plus a profit of more than 22 billion. For the american people. Thank you, america. Helping people recover and rebuild thats what we do. Now lets bring on tomorrow. Spending the day with my niece. I dont use super poligrip for hold because my dentures fit well. Before those little pieces would get in between my dentures and my gum and it was uncomfortable. Even wellfitting dentures let in food particles. Super poligrip is zinc free. With just a few dabs, its clinically proven to seal out more food particles so youre more comfortable and confident while you eat. So its not about keeping my dentures in, its about keeping the food particles out. [ charlie ] try zinc free super poligrip. Rough politics tonight, the terrifying likelihood of fiscal cliff the sequel. Fiscal cliff part 3,