As someone that’s been the victim of domestic violence I can tell you the reaction of abuse victims isn’t as straightforward as others like to imagine.
I'm sorry to hear you went through this; but glad you can enlighten others.
As this testament demonstrates, perhaps it's time we stop expecting that after devastating and traumatic experiences people act rationally and predictably according to societal expectations, and when they don't, get suspicious about ulterior motives. It's tiresome to hear/read and seems to be mostly an attempt to defend people who don't deserve it under the guise of equal protection or something like that.
Perhaps this strays too far from baseball, but in my mind, whether Verdugo filmed people he knew assaulting a 17 year old is the ultimate question. It's a much different scenario than the kids racing to film 2 other kids fighting that they perhaps don't know and I assume that one of them wasn't on the verge of passing out and vulnerable in every sense of the word. As someone else mentioned, what Verdugo did was sociopathic if not criminal (don't know the laws on that). For me, if the alleged story is true, any debate on whether the Sox should back out of the trade seems almost insulting -- Verdugo is not a Red Sox, that's it, any other discussion about swapping out another prospect or getting back Betts becomes dirty.
I personally get the not-reporting-it-immediately thing, to the extent I have to remind myself that other people see that as significant.
The other side of the coin is that there are false reports of sexual assault and other crimes. Not staggeringly huge numbers, but try telling that to someone who is facing a conviction and incarceration because of it.
Probing the veracity of what happened does not have to be disrespectful, nor does one have to leap to conclusions. In this particular circumstance, I'd say the late reporting of the sexual assault is not so much a red flag as a light yellow one, well within the scope of normal. However, there are also elements that suggest enough pressure to false report or exagerate in some way. (Re: the sexual assault, not the physical assault.) The news reporting suggests the girl only spoke out about it after she faced consequences from her shoplifting charge, but again, not entirely unusual. I can tell you that suddenly being seen as a victim in a greater crime can sometimes triggers different treatment (especially if one is a minor), and some kids are savvy/scared enough to know and use that. Or they're stupid enough to believe other kids and have a hopelessly wrong expectation about what will occur if they do report. It's a spectrum.
If I were involved in the case, I'd dig further and look at the details of the initial contact with the Dodgers, and the details of the initial reporting to the police, as well as the girl's recent history. Sometimes these things aren't as easy as just obtaining a single suggestive fact.
Not that all this isn't an aside re: Verdugo. And the physical assault, which all apparently agree happened.
What is lacking are details on the physical assault. Again, these things have degrees of wrongness to them. Did the older girls flailing smack at the younger girl a couple of times while yelling at her for puking on the bed? Was it a full fledged beat-down, an attempt to do real harm? Reporting is light on this. It's one thing to snapchat the former, and another to snapchat the latter. I'd hesitate to label Verdugo a sociopath until I knew what happened. (Not that most 19 year olds aren't a touch sociopathic.)