5 Teens Strike Plea Deal In Phoebe Prince Bullying Case

BOSTON -- Five teenagers have agreed to plead guilty to a minor charge in the bullying of a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl who later committed suicide.

A lawyer for one of the teens filed documents Tuesday indicating a plea agreement had been reached with prosecutors. A person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press about the other four plea deals on Wednesday.

The five plea deals are expected to be presented in court next week, where they must be approved by a judge, said the person, who has direct knowledge of the discussions but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

The teens are charged in the bullying of Phoebe Prince, an Irish immigrant who hanged herself in her family's South Hadley apartment last year after what a prosecutor called a "relentless" campaign of bullying that included yelling "Irish whore" at her in the school library, posting demeaning comments about her on Facebook and threatening to beat her up.

Prince's death drew international attention and was among several high-profile teen suicides that lead to new laws aimed at cracking down on bullying in schools.

The five teens are expected to plead guilty to criminal harassment, a misdemeanor. In exchange, prosecutors will drop more serious charges, including civil rights violations. The harassment charge carries a maximum of 2 1/2 years in a county jail, but the teens could receive probation, said the person familiar with the talks.

Terrence Dunphy, a lawyer for a sixth teen, Austin Renaud, said he has not reached an agreement with prosecutors to resolve the case against his client. Renaud was charged with statutory rape, but not with bullying Prince.

Lawyers for the other teens did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the lawyer for Sharon Chanon Velazquez, 17, filed documents in court indicating a plea agreement had been reached with prosecutors.

Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan issued a statement Tuesday saying his office anticipates that "there may be significant developments in one or more of the cases" next week, when the five teens are due in court. Sullivan's spokeswoman, Mary Carey, said Wednesday that he would not comment on the cases.

Velazquez and two other girls are charged in juvenile court with stalking, criminal harassment and civil rights violations. The older teens – Sean Mulveyhill and Kayla Narey – are charged as adults.

Prosecutors say Velazquez and friends Flannery Mullins and Ashley Longe began harassing Prince because she had a brief relationship with Renaud, who was Mullins' on-and-off boyfriend.

Renaud and Mulveyhill were charged with statutory rape for allegedly having sexual contact with Prince.

Comments

[shaffiate]

08:51 AM on 06/14/2011

my son kristian was the victim of the hate crime bullying in IS 51 in staten island school ,my son is mentaly damage for life,for being bully and beaten for nine months ,and all these bullys get is probations to go and do it to some other kids again ,all bullys should go to juvenile detention for 2 years and a permenent record on their name ,no deals if you bully thats what you will get ,and only then kids could go to school and feel safe ,this law has to be make and now no time to waste

[comp358]

11:02 PM on 05/09/2011

True, this could be considered bullying, but tell me this, do any of these girls look remorseful. And perhaps they should have thought about this before they decided to harass this young lady. And as for them taking their own lives, I highly doubt it. But whether or not it would be so terrible, if this happened to you and your daughter what would you say Michael Morrison? Every single day that the parents of Phoebe Prince will remember what they found that day, every day they go upstairs, everyday they sit in their apartment, everyday, and everytime they step out of their house and see a parent and their child, or a teenager they will feel the loss of their daughter and know that no justice was done. As far as I'm concerned if one of these diseased worthless mongrels committed suicide, I'd break out the noise makers, confetti, balloons and throw a party. Bullies are pathetic, weak, diseased and useless. They are a weakness to society as a whole and, like any other disease they need to be erased and completely removed. Obviously you have never been bullied, allow me to inform you, anyone who has ever been bullied, whether in middle school before or after, ask them thirty years from then who their bullies were, and they can give you every name. Bullies are a disease, and for the good of society, must be eradicated.

[comp358]

06:24 PM on 05/09/2011

In the picture they look bored not caring at all

[Michael Morrison]

10:45 AM on 05/06/2011

Amazing that many of the posters don't recognize that they are engaged in precisely the same sort of bullying that got the South Hadley kids in trouble.

Imagine, for a moment, that one of the South Hadley "Bullies" were to look at this post, and, as a result, take their own lives.

I think that a prosecuting attorney would have little problem constructing a case of "relentless and targeted bullying" against many of this site's posters.

I'm not defending bullying. It's wrong, regardless of who is doing it.

[comp358]

06:13 PM on 05/09/2011

Since I was bullied all my life.Bullies enjoy when they can see other people making comments about them.Dont be fooled by there age.They got away with it.

[JDM73]

04:23 AM on 05/06/2011

As a culture we still don't take bullying seriously. I doubt that we ever will.
Rest easy, Phoebe. In death, I hope you find the peace that these monsters prevented you from having in life.

[Michael Morrison]

02:53 AM on 05/06/2011

What, exactly, did Austin Renaud do that got him involved with this?

He wasn't involved with bullying, he denies having had sex with her, and aside from school girl gossip, there appears to be no evidence that he did.

[barbiferous]

04:24 PM on 05/04/2011

A news story today reports that the first students sentenced got probation.

A kid has died as a result of their stupidity!! They should be punished for something akin to Attempted Murder or whatever the charge is when a driver only accidentally kills a pedestrian (some kind of Manslaughter??)

The child they killed isn't getting probationary death.

[osupigskinfever]

07:47 AM on 05/02/2011

These kids need to be made examples of and MUST face jail time for what they have done! The maximum penalty should be enforced (2 1/2 years). 3 1/2 to 4 years would really wake people up everywhere and seriously send a message. The judge and the prosecutor at sentencing or in a press conference should be very blunt in saying something to the tune of: NOT IN THIS TOWN, NOT IN THIS DISTRICT, WILL THESE KIDS GET AWAY WITH WHAT THEY HAVE DONE. THEY MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS!!

The one or two kids that didn't bully Phoebe Prince, but were charged with statutory rape, should get a slap on the wrist. Not that I think SR is right, but one has to take into account that these are high school kids, and high school kids everywhere have sex, no matter what their ages or class year they are. Let's turn the table a bit here. A freshman boy is most likely not going to reject the advances of a senior girl, friends or just meeting for the first time. If he did and the girl was a hottie, and other kids found out, he would get bullied in a different way in a bad way. Phoebe was just another cute girl an athlete hooked up with and she was just another girl looking for the attention and affection of an older guy.

[comp358]

05:52 PM on 05/09/2011

What if the sex was part of the bullying. To kids like these the only rule is the most and worst they can dish out to cause pain.Lets not forget KIDS are the cruelest humans.

[HockeyMom]

12:32 PM on 04/30/2011

Not one authority figure saw anything happening to the young girl? What? If the answer is no then the school is just too dang big. If the answer is yes then why aren't the adults also in court?
My experience with schools is that the administration and teachers just turn away from social interactions gone awry.

[comp358]

06:19 PM on 05/09/2011

I thought most schools had a no tolerance policy.Thank God my daughters school had one.

[dbrett480]

07:18 PM on 04/29/2011

This plea agreement is a good thing as it will spare the Prince family from having to testify. Even if the case went to trial the charges would probably stick, except for the civil rights charge of course.

[VA Jill]

10:02 AM on 04/29/2011

Renaud should definitely not get off easy...statutory rape is statutory rape. Actually none of them should. And probation? Please!

[Michael Morrison]

02:51 AM on 05/06/2011

Perhaps we ought to have some sort of trial before convicting him. Of course, it will be a sham trial...I'm sure you'll be happy with it.

He denies he had sex with her...And, by all accounts, he wasn't involved in bullying.

[comp358]

05:53 PM on 05/09/2011

Todays bullys could be tomorrows killers.

[KindnessKAM]

10:21 PM on 04/28/2011

Our son Kameron died by suicide in January. Kameron was 14 and bullied relentlessly. Please visit our son's website and join in our mission to save our kids from the abject pain of "Bullycide"
kindnessabovemalice . org

[barbiferous]

04:27 PM on 05/04/2011

I am so sorry for your loss.

I hope you're taking legal action against the children who bullied your son.

[KMan1]

02:47 PM on 04/28/2011

These teens weren’t born mean-spirited, they learned to be that way and that behavior went unchecked by their parents. Too many parents like to relieve themselves of responsibility by convincing themselves that they have no real say in how their children turn out. IMO this horrible situation could have been avoided had the parents been more diligent in their parenting duties.

[CAELadyJane50]

01:36 PM on 04/28/2011

First of all, no parent is perfect and no two parents are exactly the same; every parent is different so every child gets raised differently. Parents can't be everywhere their teens are located all the time because they need to be elsewhere. Secondly, we live in a high tech media society where teens are allowed to communicate by internet, which allows teens to bully each other outside of schools and without their parents supervision. Thirdly, bullying seems to be more severe or more prevalent in coed schools (both boys and girls combined in same schools) much more than separate gender schools (all boys in one school separate from all girls in another school). When children get into their teens or preteens, they become more self-conscious and more emotional, so as a result, there is more social tension in those schools, especially in the co-ed schools. Parents need to demand for separate gender middle schools (7th, 8th and 9th grades) and high schools (10th, 11th and 12th grades). Those separate gender schools need to teach their students how to accept each other's differences so they learn to get along with each other, plus, schools also need to teach students formal social ettiquette. Because parents are not in those schools watching and listening to their own children, the parents are not able to teach their own children some social ettiquette; this is the responsiblity of the teachers to teach students some social ettiquette classes, formally as part of their curriculum.

[CAELadyJane50]

02:29 PM on 04/28/2011

Sorry, I misspelled "etiquette", a word which means: forms, manners that are conventionally acceptable or required in society.

[Stella2]

12:55 PM on 04/28/2011

No plea deal period !!