Sierra Vista

A Sierra Vista High School basketball player was sentenced Friday afternoon for his role in a hazing incident.

A judge ordered the teen to serve thirty days in the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center plus two years probation.

The teen was found delinquent on battery and lewdness charges stemming from a hazing incident involving Sierra Vista's basketball team.

Players piled on top of the victim, but it was the defendant who took the rough-housing to a violent level.

Prosecutor Mary Brown said, "The primary focus is that they want to get this young man help and to make sure there is not another victim."

The teen was handcuffed and brought to the detention center immediately after the sentencing.

A judge says there is not enough evidence to find a Sierra Vista High School basketball player guilty of sexually assaulting a fellow teammate. The 17 year old student was being tried as a juvenile in family court.

In the end, the judge says there wasn't enough evidence presented to prove "penetration". He did however find the teen delinquent of open and gross lewdness as well as battery.

A hearing will be held later this month to determine the punishment for the student.

Opening statements got underway today in the case against the 17-year-old Sierra Vista High School student charged with sexually assaulting one of his varsity basketball team mates.

Was this hazing incident a case of sexual assault or just boys being boys? The prosecution says it was rape the defense says it was horseplay.

Prosecutor Mary Brown said, "It's a game we play we call it play rape."

Defense attorney Frank Cremen said, "The evidence will show that my client did not commit the offenses that he is accused of. There was conduct that night that was horseplay and it might well be expected in any boys sporting activity."

The Metro officer who originally responded to the victim’s home also testified. When he arrived he says the victim was on the phone with the vice principal of Sierra Vista High School.

The officer spoke with the vice principal and testified that he said, "Can't this just wait until after basketball season?"

The suspect is suspended from school and on house arrest. His attorney says he's a good prospect for a basketball scholarship and asked if the teenager could continue to play while waiting the outcome of the case.

"If that happens there may be some tournament play," Cremen said. "He would be accompanied at all times either by his grandfather, uncle both of whom are here today or his mother."

"There was an incident before the charges were filed in this case where the victim felt intimidated, Prosecutor Mary Brown said. "In the end District Judge William Voy allowed the 17-year-old to play again.

"We need to keep the two separate," Voy said. "Work it out ok."

The only condition is the two cannot be at the same gym or in a league where the two boys will play each other on the basketball court.

Last month, a new player on the Sierra Vista High School varsity basketball team said several players pinned him down in the locker room. He says one of them pulled down his pants and touched him. That teen is the only one charged.

"It's humorous, and a little cruel, but you think, hey, you know what, they (the seniors) did the same thing to me a couple years ago," said former Centennial wrestler Chris Fletcher, 20, who acknowledged throwing clothed, younger wrestlers into showers and duct-taping others to chairs.

"They didn't enjoy it while it was happening, but they enjoyed it when they were varsity players and got to do it," said Ronald Tekpho, 20, who played football and ran track for Valley before graduating in 2003.

Many of the former athletes expressed disgust with allegations surrounding a Feb. 3 incident at Sierra Vista that has left six basketball players facing expulsion and felony charges.

The players are accused of pinning down a younger teammate while at least one of them penetrated his rectum with fingers.

"Hazing is supposed to be fun," Tekpho said, "not a violation of somebody."

Asked to elaborate on "fun" types of hazing, Tekpho described spraying a locker with a water hose while a junior varsity player was trapped inside.

"He was screaming, 'It's cold, it's cold! Let me out of here!' " said a chuckling Tekpho, a Community College of Southern Nevada student who aspires to be a police officer. "We let him out. We weren't going to let him die in there."

Playing varsity football for Chaparral in the late 1990s, Steve Puterski and his teammates had one rule after randomly choosing a younger athlete to haze.

"There was no hitting in the face or the groin," said Puterski, now a 25-year-old journalist in Greeley, Colo. "We just basically beat them in the arms and legs, so they'd be sore but not seriously hurt."

Puterski says he was similarly hazed years earlier as a junior varsity player.

"They all just kind of took a turn. It was like a senior's privilege," he said. "Maybe 10 or 15 guys would come and give you three or four licks each, then they'd help you up, and one of them would give you a ride home. It was just a tradition."

The incident, which took place about 5:45 p.m. on Feb. 3 in the school's gymnasium, involved members of Sierra Vista's boys varsity basketball team. Six or more players jumped a newcomer to the squad and took him to the floor. One or more of the attackers inserted fingers into the victim's rectum, sources said.

Sources familiar with the incident also are raising questions about the conduct of a Sierra Vista administrator. Educators are required by law to report abuse involving minors. In this incident, sources said that the victim was reluctant to step forward. His mother first called police.

"This administrator tried to dissuade the (victim's) mother from reporting it," one source said. "He also asked Metro (police) to postpone the investigation until after the game."