A 20th black person has been charged in the gang rape of an 11-year-old Cleveland girl

The most recent charges are against a person who is now considered an adult, but was a minor at the time of the assaults. All 20 of the suspects - who range in age from a middle-school student to a 27-year-old - have pleaded not guilty. The investigation began in December 2010, after one of the girl’s friends told a teacher that he had seen a lurid cell phone video showing the girl being raped in an abandoned trailer. The case became public after arrests were made in February 2011. Authorities say that the girl was assaulted on at least five occasions, sometimes by as many as seven or eight young men or boys at a time, from mid-September to early December 2010. Most of the adult suspects face charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, while four face a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child. The case shined an unflattering spotlight on Cleveland after some in the town of about 9,000 residents suggested that the girl was culpable in part for what happened, claiming she wore makeup and looked older. Some also accused her parents, immigrants from Mexico, of not watching her more closely. Those suggestions were sharply criticized by many Cleveland residents and by community and religious groups outside the city. Also complicating the case was a belief by many in the predominantly black neighborhood where several of the suspects live that the arrests were racially motivated. All of the suspects are black, while the girl is Hispanic. A Texas judge issued a sweeping gag order barring anyone who could be called to testify at the trial from talking to the news media. The order also bars the defendants, attorneys and investigators from disseminating information about the upcoming trial.