Teens Who Admitted to Bullying Phoebe Prince Sentenced

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The Prince Family

Phoebe Prince, a high school freshman, hanged herself after being bullied by classmates.

The five teenagers accused of carrying out a “three month campaign” of bullying that resulted in Phoebe Prince’s suicide last year have been sentenced. Three of the teens received probation and community service sentences, while two others only face probation.

On Thursday a juvenile court in Massachusetts sentenced Ashley Longe, who prosecutors called “the primary tormentor” on the last day of Prince’s life, with probation until her 19th birthday (she is now 18) and 100 hours of community service. Prince, a 15-year-old student who had recently moved from Ireland, killed herself in January 14, 2010 after being bullied by several students at a high school in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

(More on TIME.com: Phoebe Prince: When Bullying Goes Criminal)

Two other teens were also sentenced today on charges of criminal harassment, including Sharon Velasquez, 17, who will be held on probation until her 18th birthday for approaching Prince in the hall and calling her a “disparaging remark,” according to the Boston Globe. She confronted her again later in the day. The other teen, 18-year-old Flannery Mullins, will be on probation until her 19th birthday for a civil rights violation without bodily injury and disturbing a school assembly.

The sentences come one day after two other students, 18-year-olds Sean Mulveyhill and Kayla Narey, were sentenced on harassment charges to a year of probation and 100 hours of community service. Prosecutors said in the fall of 2009 Prince and Mulveyhill had a brief relationship that came to the attention of Narey, Mulveyhill’s girlfriend, and the pair and their friends bullied Prince as a result. In the first public apology, Narey wept during her statement to the judge and apologized to Prince’s family and addressed Phoebe herself.

“Phoebe … I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry for the unkind words I said about you. I’m sorry for what I wrote on my Facebook page. Most of all I’m sorry for Jan. 14, in the library and in the hallway, when I laughed when someone was shouting humiliating things about you. I am immensely ashamed of myself.”

(More on TIME.com: How to Bully-Proof Young Girls)

All five teens struck plea deals with the prosecution where, in exchange to pleading guilty on the misdemeanor charge of criminal harassment, the more serious charges they faced were dropped. Longe faced the most serious charges including one count of each assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, criminal harassment, disturbing a school assembly and a civil rights violation with a bodily injury resulting. The felony charge civil rights violation with bodily injury alone carries a 10-year maximum sentence. Some of the other accused teens also faced the violation of civil rights with bodily injury charge, as well as statutory rape and stalking.

Alfred Chamberland, a defense lawyer for one of the teens, said the plea deal was “an acknowledgment by the Northwestern district attorney’s office that these matters were overcharged and that the former administration brought felony indictments in cases which did not call for such.”

A sixth teen, 19-year-old Austin Renaud, has not been accused of bullying, but has been charged with statutory rape for having sex with Prince, who was 15 when he was 18. He is due in court on July 6.

During the trials, Prince’s mother, Anne O’Brien, addressed the court in her first public statement saying, “It is nearly impossible to measure the impact of Phoebe’s death upon our lives. … There is a dead weight that now sits permanently in my chest.”

One of the last text messages Prince sent was “I can’t take much more. …”

(More on TIME.com: How Not to Raise a Bully)