As The Daily Caller reported in June, anal hazing has apparently become some kind of bizarre ritual in American high schools. In the past year, there have been more than a dozen hazing incidents around the country involving at least 40 high school boys who have been sodomized by other boys using foreign objects or their fingers.

This week brought two fresh stories which follow the primary pattern: older male high school athletes decided it would be a good idea to sexually assault younger male high school athletes.

In the Boston area, police arrested three members of the boys junior varsity soccer team at Somerville High School for allegedly assaulting freshmen team members at a sports camp in over the summer, reports The Boston Globe.

The team had gone to a place called Camp Lenox in southwestern Massachusetts for team-building purposes in preparation for the upcoming fall season.

All three students who were arrested are juniors. One, Galileo Mondol, is 17 years old. The other two are 16 and remain unidentified.

The trio allegedly went into a freshman cabin at the camp and sexually assaulted three students.

“The incident goes far beyond hazing. This is rape,” Joseph A. Curtatone, the mayor of Somerville, told The Globe.

“All of us, frankly, are horrified at these allegations,” added school district superintendent Tony Pierantozzi.

Head boys soccer coach George Scarpelli admitted that the situation is a difficult one.

“I have good boys and they’re standing very strong together,” he said.

There were 165 student-athletes at the camp including boys soccer players, girls soccer players and football players. There were 19 adult supervisors.

Mondol, who will be tried as an adult, faces a raft of charges including aggravated rape of a child under the age of 16, indecent assault and battery, and witness intimidation. The two unnamed 16-year-olds face comparable juvenile charges.

The 17-year-old soccer player’s attorney proclaimed denied the criminal charges.

“My client emphatically maintains his innocence,” said William Korman, Mondol’s lawyer. “We are pleading not guilty Tuesday because he is not guilty.”

Meanwhile, in the furthest exurbs of Chicago, five members of the football and basketball teams at Plano High School face several criminal charges after months of alleged anal hazing.

Over a period of eight months, the five Plano players allegedly assaulted three teammates in a locker room at the high school, reports ABC 7 Chicago.

“They were accosted by members of the sports team, they were held down and were sexually assaulted,” Eric Weis, Kendall County State’s Attorney, told the station.

The assaults involved digital penetration, according to The Beacon-News. One of the five jocks sexually assaulted the victims. The other four held them down. At least sometimes, the crimes occurred on the victims’ birthdays.

Prosecutors suspect that other victims are out there who have not stepped forward.

The five football players face charges including criminal sexual assault, aggravated battery and unlawful restraint. All of them are under 17, and will be charged as juveniles.

All five of the students charged with crimes no longer attend Plano High.

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