Judge orders videos of alleged rape of impaired teen not to be shared
A Las Vegas judge ordered a 17-year-old accused of raping a “drunk and incoherent” teenager while others recorded not to distribute videos of the alleged assault.
“There’s no allegation that Aiden Cicchetti ever distributed or posted anything,” defense attorney Ross Goodman said during a court hearing on Wednesday. “It was other girls in the car that posted the video.”
During Wednesday’s court hearing, Goodman called the case a “false allegation” against Cicchetti. He also repeated claims that the girl consented to sex, and he told the judge that Cicchetti’s family was facing death threats.
Cicchetti was arrested in March on three counts of sexual assault and was released on his own recognizance following a court hearing in May. He did not appear in front of the judge on Wednesday.
Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Nadia Wood said she could only make court orders related to the suspect and not others who may be involved in the case.
Wood said she was ordering Cicchetti not to post any videos online “out of an abundance of caution.”
According to Cicchetti’s arrest report, a teenage girl told police that she was sent three videos of her in the backseat of a car with Cicchetti performing sex acts on her. The videos, which were three to 11 seconds in length, were recorded by people who could be heard laughing, according to police.
Prosecutors filed a criminal complaint on Monday charging Cicchetti with three counts of sexual assault, court records show.
An officer wrote in the arrest report that the girl was “barely conscious” and could be heard saying “stop.” One video captured her crying “no, no, no,” the arrest report states.
Goodman said he has reviewed the videos and that they do not show the girl saying “no” or “stop,” although he declined to say what he believes the girl said.
“What she said during sex was consistent with someone who is consenting,” he later wrote in a message to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The girl told police she met with Cicchetti on March 24 while she was partying with friends. She drank from a bottle of unknown liquor that Cicchetti had, according to the arrest report.
She told police the last thing she remembered was leaving a house party in Henderson and walking to her car, and she later woke up in Cicchetti’s kitchen with her pants and underwear missing, the report said.
Goodman said Wednesday that home security footage from Cicchetti’s home showed the girl dropping him off, then returning to the house an hour later and going back inside with a friend.
He also said police failed to interview other teenagers who were in the car with Cicchetti and the girl, and whose accounts he said contradict the police narrative.
In an interview with police, Cicchetti said he was drunk but sober enough to control his actions, according to the report. After he was confronted with the videos, he said the sex was consensual, and later said the girl’s friends had “forced him” to have sex with her.
According to the arrest report, Cicchetti had messaged the girl on social media and referenced the sexual encounter. After the girl received the videos from another person, her friend told her she should report what happened to school officials.
After Wednesday’s court hearing, Chief Deputy District Attorney Rob Stephens said he was unsure who exactly had shared the videos.
“Obviously we’ll continue to look at the case and talk to witnesses,” he said.
Another hearing in the case is scheduled for Oct. 2.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.