Brandon Vandenburg and Corey Batey were found guilty of all charges of aggravated rape and sexual battery and are now awaiting sentencing.
According to the Tennessean, the 12-day trial came to an end Tuesday around 2 p.m. and the jurors returned their decision by 5 p.m. Vandenburg, 21, and Batey, 21, will be sentenced on March 8, but they likely face decades in prison.
Much of the case against the two former football players at Vanderbilt University was based on witness testimony, including that of the other two players charged in the case: Jaborian McKenzie and Brandon Banks. But there was also videos and photos from within the room where four young men raped an unconscious female student.
There was also surveillance footage that showed her lying in the Gillette Hall hallway naked, as other students walked by without alerting the police, the Tennessean reported. Additionally, there were witnesses in the room who did not call the police during or after the incident.
For 30 minutes of their lives on June 23, 2013 - with four years of D1 football ahead of them, maybe the NFL - two young former football recruits will spend those years and many more in prison.
A 21-year-old graduate student studying neuroscience at the time, the victim released a statement after the verdict, which Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman read aloud, hailing the prosecutors, police officers and sexual violence advocates as her "heroes."
"I am also hopeful that the publicity this case has received will lead to a discussion of how we can end sexual violence on college campuses," the statement said. "Finally, I want to remind other victims of sexual violence: You are not alone. You are not to blame."
She said she was too drunk to remember anything that happened, as she was unconscious, but there was enough cellphone imagery to depict what happened. The victim was reportedly dating Vandenburg at the time when they came home drunk from a bar that night. Vandenburg sought help from McKenzie and Banks to get her into the dorm room.
McKenzie said in his testimony that Vandenburg then started encouraging the other three to rape the woman. Though Vandenburg apparently did not touch the woman, the jurors felt he facilitated the grisly assault.
Vandenburg and Batey looked defeated upon hearing the verdict, the Tennessean reported, while their parents broke down in tears and cries of anguish. One juror seemed to be tearing up as the verdict was read aloud and the victim wept openly.
McKenzie and Banks are awaiting their trial, though they may or may not be in line to cut a plea deal for their testimony in this trial.
In the end, the jury did not buy the defense's argument that the young men did not know what they were doing because of the "culture" of binge drinking and promiscuous sex.
