BOARDMAN Police: Girl lied about rape

Police said the girl made up the story to hide the fact that she had sneaked out of the theater.
By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- A reported rape in a movie theater parking lot here more than two weeks ago has been determined by police to be false.
Investigators say the 15-year-old girl was afraid she would get into trouble for leaving Cinemark Movies 8 theater on Boardman-Poland Road March 31 without permission. The rape allegation was an attempt to hide her whereabouts, they said.
Lt. Robert Rupp said Boardman police were prepared to charge the girl with filing a false report, but she is in the custody of Portage County Children Services and authorities there will deal with her.
Although under Portage County jurisdiction, the girl was a resident of Lincoln Place Campus Residential Center on Indianola Avenue, Youngstown, when she and nine other residents went to the theater with an adult chaperone from Lincoln Place.
Report: The girl told police that once the group was inside the theater, she decided to sit with a boy she had met earlier. The two left the theater and were smoking beside a van when three other males came over and started whispering in the boy's ear.
He left and the girl stayed in the parking lot with the other three. The girl said the trio pushed her into the van and repeatedly raped her.
All the boys, residents of Youngstown Youth Academy, denied the girl's allegations.
The girl eventually acknowledged there was no assault.
Lincoln Place and Youngstown Youth Academy are residential facilities for juvenile offenders.
Police say the girl and the boy she first left the theater with had met at an earlier outing of residents of the two facilities.