The 35-minute audio recording, as described in a Maryland courtroom Thursday, was horrifying. “Hold her down,” a young man said.
The voice belonged to Cecil Burrows, 23, who was sentenced to 18 months in jail for his role in what prosecutors described as a gang rape of a nearly comatose woman in a townhouse in the Montgomery County community of Olney. Burrows not only recorded the rape, he called out instructions.
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“Cecil, he like a coach,” one of the attackers could be heard saying.
Authorities have said the victim was probably drunk or drugged during the assault. Cecil Burrows was sentenced to 18 months and will be deported after serving his time. (Montgomery County Police Department)
The sentencing of Burrows concludes a case that stretched over four years. It involved a once-menacing gang named Little R and at least two members who turned on each other. On Thursday, the backstory of Burrows’s life also emerged. He was born in Mumbai. When he was 4, his mother emigrated for the United States, leaving Burrows in India. He moved in with his grandparents, then with relatives who lived in a slum, according to his attorney. He came to Montgomery County when he was 12 and joined a gang.
“I felt a sense of love, connection and belonging in a way I never felt before,” Burrows said in court Thursday. “I also knew that to challenge them was to risk getting kicked out violently.”
In handing down the 18-month sentence, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Sharon Burrell was effectively imposing a term of three years and two months. That’s because Burrows had been in jail for 617 days since his arrest and agreed to forego being credited for that time at sentencing.
At slightly more than three years, though, the sentence for a second-degree sex offense was less than prosecutors sought. Assistant State’s Attorney Patrick Mays asked for closer to 13 years, which was the maximum under an earlier plea deal he’d reached with Burrows’s attorney.
Mays said Burrows seemed to enjoy recording and coaching the assault. “Make no mistake about it, it was funny for him,” he said. “It was fun for him.”
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Poster Comment:
WaPo getting more honest about ghetto crime?