'Horrific crimes' warrant penalty

That's the view of a prosecutor, who wants the accused to be tried as adults.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A prosecutor said Monday he will seek to have three high school football players from Long Island tried as adults on charges that they sodomized and hazed younger teammates at a preseason training camp in Pennsylvania.
"The crimes ... are so horrific," Wayne County District Attorney Mark R. Zimmer said. "The impact these crimes have had on the victims and on their families is too terrible to consider."
The accused players, two of them 16 and one 17, allegedly sodomized a 13-year-old and two 14-year-old boys with a broomstick, pine cones and golf balls.
Attorneys for the accused teenagers didn't immediately return phone calls seeking comment. Attorneys for the alleged victims released a statement supporting Zimmer's decision "to prosecute as adults all three youths charged in this terrible assault."
A hearing was not immediately scheduled on Zimmer's motions to have the teenagers tried as adults, and he didn't identify the three. Zimmer said they weren't in custody but were expected to surrender to Pennsylvania authorities within the next week.
Training camp site
Sixty players and five coaches from Mepham High School in Bellmore, N.Y., attended the Aug. 22-27 training camp at Camp Wayne for Girls in Preston Park, Pa., 90 miles northwest of New York City.
The coaches slept in a different cabin from students, and said they were unaware of any problems until a parent complained. The victims allegedly were also beaten and threatened, state police said.
The Bellmore-Merrick school district suspended the three accused players from school and canceled the team's season.
The three had faced numerous juvenile court charges, including five felonies: involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, kidnapping, aggravated assault, unlawful restraint and false imprisonment.
Zimmer said the accused teenagers displayed "a degree of criminal sophistication" and added the alleged abuse apparently wasn't an isolated incident.
"Rather, as the investigation continues, it appears it was a pattern of activity that took place over a period of days involving multiple victims," Zimmer said.
"The individuals charged were all in this together. They continued their pattern of activity together," Zimmer said. "No one, not one of the perpetrators, stood up and said, 'No more, this is wrong.' "
Suspect's father dies
Meanwhile, the father of one of the three suspects died over the weekend and an autopsy was planned to determine the cause.
Nassau County Police Sgt. Anthony Repalone said officers were called to a North Merrick home at about 10 a.m. Sunday, where they found a 40-year-old man dead in his bed. An autopsy was being performed, but Repalone noted that the results of toxicology tests could take up to three weeks to determine a cause of death.
"He is the father of one of the suspects," in the Mepham High School hazing scandal, Repalone said. He would not release the name of the dead man.