Twelve students at Salisbury University in Maryland are facing assault and hate crime charges after they allegedly targeted a man “due to his sexual preferences” and lured him to an off-campus apartment where they beat him,

One of the men is accused of posing as a 16-year-old—the age at which consent is legal in Maryland—and arranged a sexual encounter with the victim. When the victim arrived, he was assaulted. Lawyers for some of the accused describe the actions as “ill-advised,

Twelve student suspects arrested in Salisbury, Md., on Thursday were charged in an alleged hate crime assault on a man targeted for his sexual preference, according to police.