Montgomery County: A Mumbai-born youth in the United States was sent to jail for 18 months after a court, hearing the 2012 gangrape of a ‘nearly comatose’ woman, learnt that he instructed other men to rape her while he recorded the sexual assault. He would be deported to India after serving his sentence.
According to a report in The Washington Post, the court awarded the jail term to 23-year-old Cecil Burrows after listening to a 35-minute audio of the recording, in which he is heard instructing others, “Hold her down.” “Cecil, he like a coach,” one of the three attackers could also be heard saying.
The assault happened at his house in Montgomery County community of Olney when the woman was either drunk or drugged.
During the probe, Burrows had told the investigators that he had gone out to purchase beer when the woman was sexually assaulted. However, in 2014, one of the men convicted in the assault told a Montgomery County detective that Burrows was home on the night of the gangrape and recorded the assault.
Police then found the audio recording on Burrows’ computer, seized during a raid at his home.
“On the recording,” detectives wrote in court papers, “a female can be heard crying out and asking for them to stop. . . . About six minutes into the recording, a male voice can be heard remarking that she is sitting there like she is dead, then one subject asks in a louder voice, ‘Are you alive? Hello?’”
Assistant State’s Attorney Patrick Mays, who had sought 13 years jail term for Burrows, said he enjoyed recording and coaching the assault. “Make no mistake about it, it was funny for him,” he said. “It was fun for him.”
Burrows was born in October 1992 in Mumbai and migrated to the US when he was 12. He later joined a gang and got involved in criminal activities.
