The family of Audrie Pott plans to sue three teenage suspects, arrested last Thursday on charges of sexually assaulting the 15-year-old Saratoga High School student. Pott hanged herself after explicit photos of her sexual assault were passed around by her peers. In a press conference today, the family alleged the three boys were sober while they used cellphones to document the sexual assault.
The incident allegedly occurred during a sleepover party on Labor Day weekend last year. Audrie had been drinking Gatorade with vodka before going upstairs to fall asleep. Later she "woke up to the worst nightmare imaginable," the Potts' Attorney Robert Allard said. In a Fox News interview, Audrie's stepmother Lisa Pott said the suspects were sober during the incident and their actions were "cold and calculated."
Audrie pieced together the assault and her attackers when she learned a humiliating photos was being passed around her high school. Although friends had tried to console her, she hanged herself eight days after the incident shortly after posting to Facebook, "worst day ever" and saying that her life was ruined.
Eric Geffon, attorney for the three suspects, is arguing that there is no connection between the humiliating photo being passed around Saratoga High School and Audrie's decision to take her own life. The boys were not officially charged with a crime until last Thursday and it took months for the family to find out what could have driven Audrie to suicide.
Now that the case has hit the media, the Pott family is speaking out against teen sexual assault and cyberbulling. "This period has been difficult for us because the wounds are so fresh," father Lawrence Pott explained at a press conference today. "We miss her every day, but now we must carry on and share her story so that this epidemic of sexual assault and cyberbullying amongst teens can be exposed and stopped."
Another spokesman for the Potts also told the press the family is set on making sure the three 16-year-old suspects, who are unidentified because of their age, be tried as adults. The boys are currently being held in a Santa Clara County detention center.
