tonight on "nightline." online outrage. two football players accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl as pictures of her drunken night spread on social media. the trial begins and we go inside a scandal and a community torn. she is just as good as the boys. why can't this 11-year-old play for the team and what does god have to do with it? one sixth grader's fight for grid iron justice. and only for the brave. coffee like you've never tasted from a place you won't believe. how one entrepreneur is starting a java empire with the help of elephants. >> keep it right here, america. elephants. >> ke[ male announcer ] withca. citibank it's easy for jay to deposit checks from anywhere. [ wind howling ] easier than actually going to the bank.

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thank you for staying with us. we begin with a story of questionable teenage judgment. the kind parents have been losing sleep over since long before the invention of the keg party. this one has shattered lives and divide an all american town in a most dramatic and public way. it involves two high school standouts, a girl from across the river, copious amounts of alcohol and accusations of sexual assault. all swirled together in a social media culture where reputations can go viral in a blink. after day two of this trial in steubenville, ohio, elizabeth vargas has the latest details. >> reporter: it is a case that has turned the town of steuben ville, ohio upside down. and a caution to teenagers living in today's digital world. two high school football

standouts are charged with sexually assaulting an intoxicated 16-year-old girl over the course of a long night last august. and after six months, the case is now in court. the question, was the girl too drunk to consent to sex? the prosecutor laid out her case. >> you will hear, i manning that portions of this testimony won't be easy to hear of at the end of the day, the state will prove the counts. >> reporter: beyond the court the case has been playing out ferociously on social media since the night in question. the two defendants, 16 and 17, apparently had already been prosecuted, defendanted and judged in blog posts and youtube videos on facebook and on twitter. >> my job is to stay focused on

the evidence and not try this case in a social media. the only thing we want to do is determine what the facts are. what the church is. >> reporter: one cell phone photo circulating from the night sparked outrage. the two defendants carrying the alleged victim by her arms and legs. she appears unconscious. >> you have an alleged victim who doesn't remember what happened that night. so this picture becomes absolutely crucial for prosecutors who are trying to prove that she was substantially impaired such that she couldn't consent. >> reporter: malik richmond who maintains his innocence spoke to us in an exclusive. he said the 16-year-old girl was awake and a willing participant in the photo that was a joke. >> so you grabbed her and that was a fun picture that you took? >> well, after that, i didn't think it was fun. but at first during that moment. >> reporter: in the moment. it was a joke picture. >> yes, ma'am. >> reporter: you weren't carrying her out. >> no.

>> reporter: walter madison is his attorney. >> the photo is what it is. the photo doesn't suggest a person substantially ill paired. >> reporter: you don't think that looks like substantial ill paramount? >> we don't care what it looks like. we know that after the photo was taken, she exhibited the ability to make decisions. >> we have witnesses that will state, that will testify that photograph was in fact staged. >> reporter: they will try to make the case that the victim was not cane pass tatd and she was alert enough to remember the pass code on her phone later that night. even the witnesses say she was stumbling and vomiting. >> so you weren't thinking that a girl who repeatedly is throwing up was pretty drunk. >> no. it's natural. >> reporter: do you see that a lot? >> yeah. >> reporter: at parties? >> not just at parties. you see it everywhere. you can see it at a football game. at a concert. >> reporter: people throwing up because they've had too much to

drink? >> you can see it anywhere. >> reporter: throughout the flight at several different parties, ohio teenagers tweeted and texted about the drunk girl. within a weak the two football players were arrested for penetrating her with their fingers. big news in a town devoted to big red football. >> you knew people in town would be talking. this was going to be a huge deal there. >> two big red football players. >> reporter: alexandria goddard is a blogger who posted all the names of the boys involved. even those who had not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. >> so i started looking at social media. i established who was on the team. and started going through names, found their twitter accounts, and you know, i was up all night. within two hours, i had names and a basic idea of what was going on that night. and it was all on twitter. >> reporter: the tweets appear

to reference a sexual assault. one read, song of the night is definitely rape me by nirvana. another, rest in peace to the person who died. you went out doing it big. >> she is deader than a door nail. >> reporter: even more shocking, a cell phone video of a boy laughing about an alleged assault is posted online by the group, anonymous. >> she is so raped right now. >> reporter: protesters defended on the small steel town wearing masks, demanding more boys be arrested and charged. many of those protesters returned today on day two of the trial. despite their pressure, just two football players stand accused. several other athletes will take the stand against them. as will the alleged victim herself. even though she says she has no memory of that night. >> i didn't rape anybody.

i didn't witness a rape going on. if i would have thought that somebody was being raped or anything like, that i would have stopped it. >> reporter: the boys are being tried in juvenile court by a judge. the trial is expected to last nearly a week. for "nightline," i'm elizabeth vargas in new york. changing gears, when we come back, she just wants to play with her friends of so what if they're all football playing boys. a fiery 11-year-old takes on the catholic youth organization and the church. ♪ [ acoustic guitar: upbeat ] [ dog ] we found it together. on a walk, walk, walk. love to walk. yeah, we found that wonderful thing. and you smiled. and threw it. and i decided i would never, ever leave it anywhere. because that wonderful, bouncy, roll-around thing...

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some 9-year-old girls want to dress up and sing. others want to nurse ducks and kittens. but caroline wanted to put on a helmet and pads and hit somebody. stories of girls going out for the football team, nothing new. it is hard to remember another struggle for gridiron equality that started a player this young and passionate and successful. as always, the plot thickens when the grown-ups get involved. >> reporter: the romans, a team of sixth graders who didn't get into football to stir up a controversy. they were just playing to win and lots of time they do. jake and tommy and drew and ryan and caroline, the team's only girl. caroline. here she is scoring a touchdown. >> what is it about the game that you like?

>> i thought it was really cool to be able to go out there and be with your friends and hit each other. >> reporter: then they kick her off the team for being a girl. >> when she signed up, in 2011, he got the message on the machine and he said i want you to know if. you signed your daughter up to play football. >> reporter: after two years of playing and winning, somebody filed a complaint. that's when the controversy started. >> somebody ratted you out? >> they won't tell us that but they did say someone called. >> reporter: the catholic youth organization said they would make an exception to let her finish that season. but after that, she was off the team. >> i was surprised. a little disappointed but probably mostly surprised and shocked. >> i was always taught whatever the boys could do, could i do, too. >> reporter: her mom didn't tell carol aisline the bad news right away. >> i found out before the last game. my mom will me and i was really mad. because i just really wanted to

play and i wanted to have other girls be able to play. >> reporter: different explanations began to be offered for the no girls rule. one is that it wasn't safe for girl to play. given caroline's size, she is as big as most of the boys, and given her skills, which she demonstrated to me -- >> if the ball is going that way, you want to go that way. >> reporter: that didn't seem to make much sense. then a report he for forbes heard about a meeting the catholic youth organization had convened to discuss the rule. from that emerged an entirely different reason for keeping girls out of play. >> i spoke to two members on the panel that ended up telling me, the panel was told to imagine a girl quarterback having to place her hands on the back side of a boy and how it would lead to inappropriate touching and one or the other, boy or girl, enjoying this. the one panel member said to me that from that statement, the takeaway was, well, other boys

might now want to join the football team to be part of this action. this inappropriate touching. >> the church to come out and say that right now, and we're in such a painful situation in the catholic church and for them to come out and use those words. that just puts another black eye. >> reporter: so she started her own campaign to change the rule. doing better views. >> i was really angry. not only i am a not going to be able to play, other girls won't be able to playful. >> reporter: starting an online petition. even appearing on ellen. >> you've been playing football since you were 5? >> ever since i was a little girl. >> you're still a little girl. >> reporter: when that didn't work, she e-mailed the arch bishop herself. >> my name is caroline pla and i am 11 years old. i have been playing football for the catholic youth organization for two years. now it has come to their attention that i cannot play because i am a girl. but his reapply to her seemed to

take exception to her media campaign. i am perplexed that you would contact me last after publicizing your situation in both the national media. that has no effect on my decision making. cyo rules exist for good reason. it is not that she set out to change the world. in most ways she is a typical kid. and into typical things. she just also wants to play football. and there is no all girls football league where she lives of. >> if there were, would you want to play on that team? >> definitely. >> reporter: it is not about making trouble. your whole thing is to play football. >> yeah. i know there have been girls wanting to play cyo football and there are girls that want to play in the future so i want them to be able to play. >> reporter: in your gut, do you think you'll get the rule changed? >> in my gut? i'm about to throw the hail mary pass. >> reporter: that might have done the trick because today word came from the archbishop. the decision is -- caroline can

play. >> are you going to disney world now? >> yes, i am. >> reporter: the statement goes like this. at the direction of the archbishop, the arch diocese will allow for co-ed participation in cyo football effective in the 2013 season. >> so you can play football. >> yes! >> reporter: so a win. a win for caroline and a win for her team which is glad to have her back on the squad. abc news, doylestown, pennsylvania. first a new pope and then that. thanks. coming up next, this coffee is delicious. where is it from? you don't want to know. very logical thinker. (laughs) i'm telling you right now, the girl back at home would absolutely not have taken a zip line in the jungle. (screams) i'm really glad that girl stayed at home.

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remember the old ad campaign, a satisfied coffee drinker from a fancy restaurant brew is actually foljers

crystals? you have to wonder about what he would think if it fell out of the back end of an elephant. yes. dung beans. it turns out one of the world's most expensive coffees is a strain that has been carefully passed through really big bowels and a canadian entrepreneur is betting a fortune that you'll want some. off to thailand in search of a taste, here's abc. >> reporter: we set off deep into the jungle. >> we're on our way to the elephant sanctuary. the fog is so thick, in some areas you can hardly see a thing. >> reporter: we journeyed by water, by foot and then a rusty, rickety jeep. over dirt roads and rugged mountain sides and it was right about here, just as we arrived, that this story really went to the dumps. >> the elephant -- >> oh, yeah, relieved itself. >> just when you thought you hit the peak of network television.

you wind up walking into elephant dung. >> reporter: for canadian businessman blake dingin, this is just another day at the office. >> this is the fruits of our labor. >> reporter: those fruits, of course, well, they're not really fruits at all. you can't see it but lumped into that shovel is a fresh pile of coffee beans that were -- deposited by an elephant. to you and i, it might seem a little bit, well, out there. but dinkin is betting his thing from number two is the next best thing in the coffee world. really. seriously? coffee from elephants? >> this is a special unique coffee that is for a minority of people who are open minded and adventurous and who want to try something different. >> reporter: different is what black ivory coffee is all about. an elephant's digestive system

supposedly breaks down the coffee bean. think of it like a slow cooker producing a taste like nothing else. even at $50 a serving, the coffee drinkers we spoke to, well, they all said -- bottoms up. >> so i'm here with mike wilson. you're from -- >> san francisco, california. >> you've tried the coffee? >> i have. it is rich and smooth. >> you're saying rich and smooth. but there is an elephant's butt right in the background. >> i understand. >> reporter: that laughter is music to dinkin's ears. it all starts here. this remote mountain side where the beans are grown. local villagers pick, wash and dry the beans and then feed them to the elephants. >> this is cooking for elephants 101. it is a mixture of coffee beans, rice, fruit, finer and water. >> when we eat fiber, there is a certain reaction. >> it wouldn't hurt. >> reporter: anywhere from 15 to 70 hours later, the beans are

ready to be -- recovered. yeah. i'm going to wear gloves for this. >> oh, yeah. this is the highlight of my career. >> reporter: if it looks dirty, yeah, it is. the crap-occino jokes aside, business is booming. what about the elephants? is it safe for animal to be eating that much coffee? >> there will be people saying you're out to make a quick buck. >> we operate in a trans parent manner. tourists can come. vets are here to make sure the elephants are taken care of. i've worked with wildlife experts, picked the best sanctuary. it is all on my own money. >> reporter: as for the coffee, by the time it is roasted and cleaned, you know, it takes nothing like that four-letter word we're not supposed to say tv. >> it has a nutty taste, very rich, flavorful. >> reporter: in the end it may not even matter what it tastes like. part of the point is just to be

able to say you tried it. after all, you know what they sargs it is good to the last dropping. for "nightline," in the golden triangle in thailand. >> good gig. thanks. time for tonight's closing arguments. pope francis has finished his first full day of leader of over a billion catholics. so many challenges facing the church these days from declining numbers in the pews to sex abuse after decades. guiding the faithful will be anything but easy. where should francis focus his attention in these early days? you can weigh in on the "nightline" facebook page or tweet us at "nightline" or at bill weir at abc. thank you for watching abc news. we'll see you back here tomorrow night.