Ryan Calhoun (left) and Delonte Martistee (right), both former Troy students, are serving a 10-year sentence in Florida prisons after their conviction for sexual battery by multiple perpertrators in September 2016.
Abby Taylor
Online Content Editor
Lilly Casolaro
News Editor
Delonte Martistee and Ryan Calhoun, both former Troy students who are now 24 years old, are serving time in Florida prisons after receiving 10-year sentences for a 2015 sexual assault in Panama City Beach, Florida.
According to the Florida Department of Corrections, Calhoun is at Blackwater Correctional Facility in Milton, Florida, and Martistee is at Graceville Correctional Facility in Graceville, Florida. Both facilities are all-male, and the men were admitted on Nov. 2, 2016.
Both are registered sex offenders.
The two were sentenced after their conviction in September 2016 of sexual battery by multiple perpetrators during spring break of 2015.
Sexual battery by multiple perpetrators, a legal term referring to nonconsensual sexual contact, is a first-degree felony and can have a maximum sentence of 30 years and a minimum sentence of nine years.
According to CNN, the assault took place behind the Spinnaker Beach Club, a bar and dance club.
A video of the assault was discovered during an unrelated shooting investigation in Troy, which turned up the video on a witness’s phone.
Jurors watched the unedited video of the victim lying on a beach chair while Martistee and Calhoun assaulted her as bystanders watched.
George Kennedy Jr., a student from Middle Tennessee State University and the victim’s boyfriend at the time, filmed the assault. Kennedy was arrested but cleared of charges in January 2016 because he had been a bystander.
Judge James Fensom of Bay County said that “the sexual act was encouraged by the crowd and also by, unbelievably, the victim’s boyfriend, but that in no way excuses the conduct of Mr. Martistee and Mr. Calhoun.”
The victim’s family asked for the longest sentence possible for Martistee and Calhoun.
Prosecutor Christa Diviney read letters from the victim’s family that called for the maximum sentence, according to newsherald.com.
This assault and incidents in Panama City Beach led to new laws for spring break regulations.
According to CNN, the Bay County Commission and the Panama City Beach Council banned the consumption of alcohol on sandy beaches between March 1 and April 18.
Other laws have passed since 2015, according to newsherald.com.
These laws include bars closing at 2 a.m., no consumption of alcohol in commercial parking lots during March, a requirement that alcohol drinkers on the beach have government-issued IDs and a ban for anyone under 21 entering an establishment serving alcohol after midnight.
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