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Eleven teen lacrosse players from upstate New York have been charged with unlawful imprisonment in the second degree — a misdemeanor — due to their alleged involvement in the extreme hazing of five younger teammates, according to a partially redacted complaint Thursday by the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office and the Onondaga County District Attorney’s office.

The high schoolers are accused of plotting or participating in the same stunt: staging a kidnapping scene and making younger teammates believe they were being abducted by armed assailants dressed in black.

But the fates of the suspects from Westhill High School in Syracuse could vary widely. And the closeness of their tight-knit community presented an unusual challenge for victims’ families.

All 11 suspects surrendered to authorities this week after District Attorney William Fitzpatrick publicly offered them a deal Tuesday: Turn yourself in within 48 hours, and face a misdemeanor charge of unlawful imprisonment. Don’t turn yourself in, and face a more serious charge of felony kidnapping.

Authorities have not identified the suspects due to their ages. While most of the suspects are minors, at least one is over age 18, Onondaga County First Chief Assistant District Attorney Joseph Coolican said. But even 18-year-olds could get their records sealed.

The students accused of being involved in the incident have begun facing school suspension hearings, according to two people familiar with the process, with some hearings taking place Thursday and others scheduled for Friday.

Under New York state law, offenders aged 19 and younger can be eligible for Youthful Offender Status, which seals their criminal record and gives greater discretion to their punishment.

Youthful Offender Status is “designed to give people aged 16 but younger than 19 sort of a second chance to straighten out their lives,” said David Shapiro, lecturer at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“It’s recognition of the state of mind and the comparative development as a person moves from a child to an adult,” Shapiro said. In any case, the “fairly young age of the offenders would be considered at sentencing.”

But there are caveats to obtaining Youthful Offender Status. A judge has to look at the nature of the offense, whether the suspect has prior felony convictions, and whether the suspect is accused of other violent crimes, which could make them ineligible for that status.

For suspects over age 18, defense lawyers will likely ask for their clients to be given Youth Offender Status “because it’s the more favorable treatment in terms of the sealing of their record and the punishment,” CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said, as opposed to “getting slammed as an adult.”

While any adult suspects will be arraigned, the juvenile suspects will proceed to family court, Fitzpatrick said.

In New York, cases involving suspects under age 16 go straight to family court – where the consequences are focused on rehabilitation and diversion initiatives, such as community service or educational programs, Jackson said.

An 18-year-old could get more lenient treatment as well, if the judge presiding over the case decides to send the young adult to the Youth Part of the Supreme Court, Jackson said. There, a suspect would be considered a juvenile delinquent and would be treated more gingerly than an adult in their early 20s.

That also means an 18-year-old might avoid prison time and could receive the same services and programs as a juvenile delinquent, Jackson added.

“The whole essence of this in New York is you’re examining there’s a distinction when you’re young between rehabilitation and punishment,” Jackson said.

While the district attorney can make a formal request to keep a case in family court or move it to the Supreme Court’s Youth Part, ultimately it’s the judge’s call, Shapiro said.

“Once you put a person in the criminal justice system as a convict or delinquent, there’s a great probability that you’ve lost that person for the rest of his or her life,” Shapiro said. “The law recognizes that, and they allow judicial discretion to say: ‘Some individuals still possess hope. Some individuals have not committed crimes so egregious that we cannot sort of give them leniency.’”

In addition to the suspects’ ages, each student’s level of responsibility will also factor into their punishment, experts said.

Ambushed and thrown into a car trunk

The ruse unfolded April 24, when some of the suspects tricked several younger players into believing they were going to McDonald’s after a lacrosse game, Fitzpatrick said.

The driver of the vehicle claimed he was lost in a remote part of the county, the DA said. That’s when accomplices dressed in black and wielding what appeared to be at least one handgun and a knife jumped out of the woods, pretending to be kidnappers, Fitzpatrick said.

Some of the young victims managed to escape, but one student couldn’t flee, the DA said. The perpetrators put a pillowcase over that teen’s head, tied him up and threw him in the trunk of a car before ditching him in another wooded part of the county, Fitzpatrick said.

The young player thought he was “going to be abandoned in the middle of nowhere,” the district attorney said. He was eventually returned home.

The incident was captured on video, and “you can hear that some of the (suspects) found it amusing,” Fitzpatrick said.

The DA did not say whether the apparent gun was real or fake, but said, “We’re not going to charge anybody with possession of a weapon.”

The coach of the Westhill High School boys lacrosse team, Aaron Cahill, made a statement on his LinkedIn page Wednesday saying: “The pain and hurt this has caused is very real, and no one should ever have to endure this.”

Speaking to the victims, their families and the school community, Cahill said he has “made it a priority to hold our student-athletes to the highest standard—on and off the field” since being named head coach of the team.

The actions of the students accused in the case “are not representative of our program, our coaching staff, or our family. And they are in no way condoned,” he added.

“Let me be clear: our coaching staff and I have cooperated fully with the ongoing investigation,” Cahill continued. “We have been confirmed to have had absolutely no prior knowledge of this incident.”

The district attorney raised eyebrows this week when he announced his office had decided to pursue charges – regardless of whether the victims and their families wanted to press charges.

But that was a wise decision, given how many families have known one another for generations, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon said.

“We’re a community of about half a million people. But over on the west side of the county, everybody grew up there. Everybody knows each other,” said McMahon, the head of the county’s executive branch.

“The parents grew up together. Their parents grew up together. So this is extremely painful,” he said.

“You had families struggling because they know each other. … And instead of having to have families that know each other make very difficult decisions, the district attorney took that very hard decision out of their hands, into his capable hands. And I think that was really important.”

While the legal process unfolds, the Westhill Central School District said it has launched its own investigation and canceled the rest of the Westhill varsity boys’ lacrosse season.

As a result, dozens of players who did nothing wrong won’t be able to play due to the “stupidity” of some teammates, the county executive said.

“I do want to highlight that out of the team, there’s 11 students that took part in this,” McMahon said. “But there’s 39 student-athletes on that team. And 28 of those student-athletes who did nothing wrong are learning a really, really hard life lesson right now.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Linh Tran contributed to this story.