Judge claims teen rapist should be given leniency because he 'comes from a good family.'

This is not ok.

 Irene Fagan Merrow
07.03.19

A family court judge has continually shown leniency to a 16-year-old boy who raped a 16-year-old girl because he is "from a good family," who "put him into an excellent school where he is doing extremely well," according to the New York Times. The judge also said that it should have been explained to the victim that pressing charges would ruin the boy's life.

The assault happened at a pajama party in New Jersey, where the victim was heavily intoxicated. The boy filmed himself penetrating her from behind, and sent out the video he took as a text with the words, "When your first time having sex was rape." In the video, the girl's head is seen hanging down, and her torso exposed.

But Judge James Troiano said this wasn't rape, claiming rape is something that is reserved for cases where the victim is held at gunpoint. This, he claims, is sexual assault, and should be treated differently.

So when the prosecutor put in a motion to try the boy as an adult, Judge Troiano denied it, saying, "He is clearly a candidate for not just college but probably for a good college."

Prosecutors detailed the rape, saying before the assault, a group of boys sprayed Febreze on her backside and slapped it so hard that she had hand prints on it the next day. Following the assault, her friends found her vomiting on the floor, and she was driven home by a friend's mother.

The victim, who has asked to remain unnamed, woke up confused by her torn clothes and bruising, but told her mother that she feared sexual things had happened to her.

In addition to claiming there is a distinction between rape and sexual assault, Judge Troiano has claimed that the video and text message this teen boy sent his friends -- where he himself calls what he did "rape" -- is "just a 16-year-old kid saying stupid crap to his friends."

Judge Troiano has been rebuked by an appeals court with a 14-page ruling that calls out the judge for showing bias towards privileged teenagers. Sounds about right.

This article originally appeared on SomeeCards. You can read it here.

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Man pulls off elaborate scheme involving body double to get his overweight cat on an airplane

Facebook / Mikhail Galin

Putting your pet in cargo during a flight isn't always safe. In 2016, the Department of Transportation reported a total of 26 pet deaths and 22 injuries on flights. Because conditions in cargo can be uncomfortable for animals, the Humane Society recommends taking your pet aboard when you fly, or just leaving it at home.

It's not surprising that one Russian man didn't want to put his overweight cat in cargo during an eight-hour flight from Moscow to Vladivostok. What is surprising is the great lengths he took to fly with his four-legged friend.

Russian airline Aeroflot allows pets to fly inside the plane's cabin, as long as the cat weighs under 17.6 pounds and stays in its carrier during the flight. When Mikhail Galin went to check in, he was told he couldn't fly with his four-year old cat, Viktor. Viktor weighed in at 22 pounds and would have to be relegated to cargo.

But Viktor was sick from their earlier flight from Riga, Latvia to Moscow. And besides, Viktor had been allowed to fly inside the cabin during that flight. The airline staff didn't even bother to make Viktor sit on the scales. Galin was unable to persuade staff to bring his fur baby on board.

"To all attempts to explain that the cat won't survive there on an 8-hour flight with the baggage and would haunt her in her nightmares for the rest of her life, she (the Aeroflot staff member) replied that there are rules," Galin wrote in a Facebook post translated from Russian.

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There's a scientific (and adorable) reason why babies hiccup, according to a new study

Photo by Kelvin Octa from Pexels

Newborn babies don't seem to do much beyond eating and pooping and, of course, hiccupping. A lot. Parenting advice on how to cure a baby's hiccups runs the whole gamut. It's recommended parents try everything from nursing to stop feeding the baby so much, from giving the baby gripe water to letting the hiccups play their course. But when your baby hiccups too much, you shouldn't freak out. There's a good reason why.

A new study published in Clinical Neurophysiology found that hiccups play an important role in a baby's development. Researchers from the University College London found 217 babies for their study, but only looked at 13 newborns with persistent hiccups. Ten of those babies hiccupped when they were awake, and three hiccupped during their "wriggly" sleep. We have no idea how the scientists got any work done with all that cuteness lying around.

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Watch Kristen Bell magically rip through 17 Disney songs in 5 minutes with Jimmy Fallon

via The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon / YouTube

Actress Kristen Bell and "The Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon showed off their vocal and comedic chops on Tuesday night when the performed a medley of 17 Disney songs, spanning nine decades, in just five minutes.

The duo started with 1940's "When You Wish Upon a Star" and ended with 2013's "Let it Go" from "Frozen."

Bell will reprise her role as Anna in Disney's upcoming "Frozen 2."

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Women shared how they make sexist men explain their nasty jokes, and it's so satisfying

Twitter—Heather Thompson Day/Naomi Savolainen/Chess Pearson

Ask almost any woman about a time a man said or did something sexually inappropriate to them, and she'll have a story or four to tell. According to a survey NPR published last year, 81% of women report having experienced sexual harassment, with verbal harassment being the most common. (By contrast, 43% of men report being sexually harassed. Naturally harassment toward anyone of any sex or gender is not okay, but women have been putting up with this ish unchecked for centuries.)

One form of verbal sexual harassment is the all too common sexist or sexual "joke." Ha ha ha, I'm going to say something explicit or demeaning about you and then we can all laugh about how hilarious it is. And I'll probably get away with it because you'll be too embarrassed to say anything, and if you do you'll be accused of being overly sensitive. Ha! Won't that be a hoot?

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