In brief: Team hazing investigation leads to sex crime charges

PARLIN, N.J. – Seven students were charged with sex crimes Friday after an investigation into hazing on a high school football team that found they held other children against their will and improperly touched them, prosecutors said.

Three of the students were charged with aggravated sexual assault, criminal restraint, hazing and other crimes for an act of sexual penetration upon one of the children, Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew C. Carey said. The four other students were charged with aggravated criminal sexual contact and other crimes for what happened at Sayreville War Memorial High School, a regional football power where the rest of the season has been canceled.

Six of the seven students, ranging in age from 15 to 17, were arrested Friday night and the seventh was being sought, prosecutors said.

The group allegedly attacked four students between Sept. 19 and Sept. 29, prosecutors said.

Woman exonerated in slaying, freed after 17 years in prison

TORRANCE, Calif. – A woman who spent 17 years in prison for a homeless man’s death is free after being exonerated by a Los Angeles County judge.

Susan Mellen was released Friday evening from a Torrance courthouse. She told reporters that she always had faith that God would free her.

The 59-year-old also hugged her grandchild for the first time.

Her conviction was overturned earlier in the day by a judge who said he was convinced of her innocence.

Mellen was convicted of the 1997 murder of a homeless man based solely on witness testimony – and a woman who claimed she heard Mellen confess had a history of giving false tips to authorities.