Tuesday, March 14, 2017 | 10:30 a.m.
A Las Vegas judge decided that a 39-year-old man and a high school student will remain jailed without bail pending a preliminary hearing on charges they took part in a videotaped sexual assault of a 14-year-old special education student and encouraged five other teenage boys to take part.
A court-appointed attorney for the older man, Leby Alas-Gomez, declined to comment Tuesday. A lawyer for 18-year-old Jose Mejia-Henriquez didn't immediately respond to messages following a Monday hearing in Las Vegas Justice Court.
Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis scheduled a March 27 preliminary hearing for both defendants on conspiracy and sexual assault of a child under 14 charges. The suspects face possible life prison sentences if convicted.
Mejia-Henriquez also faces multiple kidnapping, coercion and child pornography charges.
Proecutor Alexander Chen said five teenagers ranging in age from 14 to 18 may also be charged as adults in the case. They have not been identified.
The case emerged after a cellphone video of group sex acts with the girl circulated in December at a Las Vegas high school, according to a police report.
School officials told police the victim was a ninth-grader with a mental capacity of a 7- or 8-year-old.
She told investigators that a student with a car and several other boys raped her three times in November at a house and remembered that the father of one boy also entered the room.
The girl told police the father instructed the boys to continue and took part in the alleged sexual assault.
