PANAMA CITY — One of the two Alabama college students charged with what authorities are calling a broad-daylight Spring Break “gang rape” has bonded out of jail while the other remains in custody, according to court records.
Delonte’ Martistee, a 22-year-old senior from Bainbridge, Ga., and Ryan Calhoun, a 23-year-old sophomore from Mobile, Ala., were arrested Thursday in Alabama on Bay County warrants. Both men, students of Troy University in Alabama, were charged with sexual battery by multiple perpetrators after a cellphone video surfaced of several men taking advantage of an incapacitated female on a crowded beach in broad daylight, although none of the onlookers came to the woman’s aid. Martistee and Calhoun were taken to the Bay County Jail and held on a $50,000 bond, according to Bay County Jail officials.
Martistee, a track star at the school, remained in custody Monday, according to officials. He declined to speak with local media outlets.
Calhoun posted bond Saturday shortly after being booked. He also now faces charges of retail theft stemming from a March 2013 incident, according to court records. A warrant for his arrest had been pending after violating terms of the case’s resolution.
BCSO officials said they expect more arrests to come in connection with the videotaped rape. BCSO spokeswoman Ruth Corley said Monday an ID of a third suspect is likely; however, no new arrests had been announced late Monday.
The cellphone video, which Sheriff Frank McKeithen has likened to “wild animals preying on a carcass laying in the woods,” was obtained during a Troy Police investigation into a shooting that left people injured with nonlife-threatening wounds. The video depicts several males surrounding an incapacitated female on a wooden chair behind the beach club. As the men make comments like “she isn’t going to know,” the female feebly tries to push their hands away from her.
The victim, a 20-year-old woman, told investigators she might have been drugged but, beyond that, she could not remember much, BCSO reported.
The woman, whose name is not being released, never reported the case because she did not remember the details, BCSO reported. Without the discovery of Troy Police, BCSO might never have gotten word of the incident. BCSO said the incident happened between March 10 and March 12 on a crowded beach during broad daylight.
School responds: Officials of Troy University distanced the institution from the charges against two of its students in a public statement. Both men have been temporarily suspended for violating the school’s standards, and Martistee has been removed from the track team, according to Senior Vice Chancellor Walter Givhan.
“We do not tolerate breaches of those standards,” he said.
Givhan added that, to ensure due process, the suspension is temporary due to the pending investigation.
“At Troy, we talk about the Trojan way,” he said. “It is about caring for one’s self and others.”
Back on Panama City Beach Sunday morning, Zack Sasser, who has rented out beach chairs and equipment for the past four years, picked up beer cans, cigarette butts and the occasional condom that littered the beachfront. He said the biggest issue with Spring Break is binge drinking.
“People come down here and go from zero to 60, and they cannot handle it,” he said Sunday, adding he did not think Spring Break was any more out of control than normal, but that more people are filming every action.
At a Panama City Beach McDonald’s, teenagers Timia Bryant and Arabia Quigley, both 17, were among a group of 15 teens from Atlanta.
“I felt safe because I was with my friends,” Bryant said. “We always stayed in groups and checked on each other.”
Quigley said Spring Break safety comes down to personal choices.
“If you are drinking or doing drugs or not paying attention to who you are with, it can be dangerous,” she said.
During a press conference Friday, McKeithen encouraged anyone who has suffered a sexual assault while on Spring Break to come forward despite the amount of time that might have elapsed. An untold number of cases have gone unreported because the victim is either too embarrassed to too scared to file a report, he said.
“This is not the first video we have recovered; it is not the second; it’s not the third video,” McKeithen said. “There is a number of videos that we have recovered similar to this, and I can only imagine how many we haven’t recovered.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.