A 16-year-old Silver Spring boy charged with raping a woman who died shortly after the June incident outside the Rockville courthouse will be tried in juvenile court.
The boy was initially charged as an adult with second-degree rape in the case in which he allegedly raped the 19-year-old woman in a June 12 incident captured by a surveillance camera at the courthouse. On Thursday, Montgomery County Circuit Judge Gary Bair ordered the case be transferred to juvenile court.
Because the case is now being handled in juvenile court, Bethesda Beat is not identifying the boy. The woman is not being identified because Bethesda Beat does not typically identify victims of alleged sexual assault.
Court files did not indicate how the woman died and a spokesman for the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said he could not comment on the cause of death because the case is now a juvenile matter. The Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner also declined to release the cause of death.
According to testimony at Thursday’s hearing, prosecutors handling the case agreed with the boy’s public defender that the case should be transferred to juvenile court. A psychological evaluation discussed Thursday found that the boy had an IQ level of 56, well below normal intelligence levels.
Bair said the boy’s mental health history was significant and that the boy would be better suited for programs that could be recommended in juvenile court. Bair also said that while the charge is serious, the boy has been compliant with court orders since he was released on bond. The judge also noted the boy has no extensive history of criminal behavior, besides one minor juvenile infraction. The boy pleaded not guilty to the second-degree rape charge Thursday.
Rockville police broke up the alleged rape as it was happening near an exterior wall of the Circuit Court around 11:40 p.m. However, the woman involved stopped breathing while being transported to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville and was pronounced dead at the hospital around 1 a.m. June 13, according to the police report.
The incident happened after the boy and the woman attended a movie at the Regal Cinemas in Rockville, police reported. The woman told police that she had dated the boy for about a month, but stopped because he had tried to pressure her into having sex with him. She told officers she had declined to have sex with him the night of the incident, while the boy told police he felt “angry” she had declined and forced himself onto her.
