ALBANY — Two former members of the University at Albany football team were sentenced last Thursday in Albany County Court for last fall’s on-campus gang rape.

Under a plea agreement, the two 19-year-olds, Julius Harris of Florida and Lorenzo Ashborne of Georgia, will serve six months in Albany County’s jail and 10 years of probation for third-degree rape, according to the Albany County District Attorney’s Office.

The rape took place inside the room of Harris and Ashborne in the Onondaga Hall dormitory.

They were sentenced by Albany County Judge Thomas Breslin. The third defendant in the rape case, Charles Guadango of Texas, another football player who was convicted after the first two, is still under investigation and no date has been set for his trial.

He is still home on $50,000 bail.

The victim was also a first-year student and had met Ashborne during orientation earlier that fall, according to her statement to police. She said she met Harris through Ashborne. She has since left the school and has returned home.

Heather Orth, a spokeswoman for the Albany County District Attorney’s office, declined to comment on the father’s statement of protest he read in court during the sentencing hearing.
"The prosecution and defense attorneys and the victim and her family were a part of the plea agreement process"We would not have done the agreement without the consent of the family," Orth said. "The victim was not interested in going to trial."

Registry

Harris and Ashbourne will have to register as sex offenders and cannot commit any crimes, even misdemeanors, while they are on probation, Orth said.
"They were sentenced to six months in jail and have to serve 10 year’s probation as sex offenders"which means that any crimes they commit could result in them receiving their maximum sentence, which is up to 10 years in prison," Orth told The Enterprise last week.

Harris and Ashborne have yet to be assigned a sex-offender level, under which they must register for the rest of their lives, as part of the Sex Offender Registration Act. A hearing, yet to be scheduled, will determine which of three levels they are to be assigned, said Orth.

A Level 3 sex offender is deemed the most likely to re-offend.

The New York State Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives handles the hearings, and, along with presiding judges, determines whether or not convicts will be required to serve their probation in New York if they reside outside of the state.
All three men arrested in the university rape case live in the South, and they were all freshmen on the school’s football team at the time of the rape. Harris, Ashborne, and Guadango were expelled from athletic programs and from the university following the allegations and university officials condemned the incident as "unacceptable behavior."

Following the on-campus rape, the 17,000-student university announced the formation of the Task Force on Acquaintance Rape to target preventing rape by an acquaintance rather than a stranger.