after-words.org

3 Mepham players sue over assaults (NY Newsday, March 17, 2004)

Three high school football players sexually assaulted at a team training camp last summer filed negligence lawsuits Wednesday against the school, administrators, its football coaches and the three assailants and their parents. The lawsuits, which seek unspecified damages, were filed in state Supreme Court in Mineola, the plaintiffs' lawyers said at a news conference. The lawsuits follow last week's release of a Wayne County, Pa., grand jury report that criticized Mepham High School's football coaches, but found no basis for filing criminal charges against them.

Text of Wayne County grand jury's Mepham report (NY Newsday, March 10, 2004)

The Wayne County Investigative Grand Jury received evidence regarding the crimes committed in Preston Township, Waync County, Pennsylvauia, between the days of August 22 and August 27, 2003. The evidence included credible evidence that certain upperclassmen from the Mcpham High School, Long Island, New York, football team assaulted some of the younger members of the team. The entire team of 68 students was attending a football camp at Camp Wayne for Girls in Wayne County at that time. The team was chaperoned by five adult coaches. [...] The three perpetrators started their activities the first night of the camp by taping one of the young victims to his bed. They then required him to go to the adjoining cabin and put powder and gel in the hair of another underclassman. The next day two of the perpetrators hold down one another of the victims across his bed while the third assaulted him by sticking a broomstick coated with Mineral ice in his anus. This activity was conducted in front of other players who laughed and joked about it.

The assault by broomstick coated with Mineral Ice was repeated the next day on the same victim, but only after the 16 and 17 year old perpetrators had applied duct tape to the victim's legs, eyebrows, butt and pubic area and pulled it off slowly causing a great deal of pain. All of these actions were again witnessed by other players. The older players laughed but the younger players did not. Three different younger players were assaulted by having foreign objects inserted into their anuses by these young men. The objects which were used in the assaults were broomsticks and pine cones coated with Mineral Ice and in one instance a golf ball was inserted and then pushed in further using the broomstick as a ramming instrument. Two of the players endured these assaults more than once and were forced to actually commit the assaults on each other in front of others by the bullying of the older players. These two players were assaulted to various degrees daily starting on the second day of camp.

The two underclassmen were made to suffer further pain and humiliation by the perpetrators throughout the week at camp. One day they were forced to put Mineral Ice on their testicles and then alternately kicking each other in that sensitive area of the anatomy.

After the one underclassman had removed the golf ball from his rear, the other young player was required to put it in his mouth and was not told where it had been until after he had complied. The bullies then made him take the first underclassman's toothbrush and stick it in his anus. When the first underclassman returned to the room after cleaning himself from golf ball assault, he was made to brush his teeth using the toothbrush. [...] The Grand Jury is convinced based upon the evidence before it that if two of the victims had not required medical treatment for the injuries they sustained at camp within a few days after returning home, these crimes would not have been reported. Accordingly, the Grand Jury is also convinced that the coaches had no knowledge of there crimes and other activities until after the team had returned to New York and the victims sought medical attention.

The Grand Jury was asked to consider whether criminal charges should be brought in Pennsylvania relative to the coaches' acts or failures to act. In that regard the Grand Jury has reviewed the evidence before it in light of the crimes of Endangcring the Welfare of Children (18 Pa.C.S. Section 4304) and Recklessly Endangering Another Person (18 Pa.C.S. Section 2705).

After thoroughly examining the elements of those crimes and the evidence presented, the Grand Jury finds no basis for charging the coaches with either or both of these crimes. By legal definition the coaches acted neither knowingly nor recklessly with regards to the elements of these offenses. Their decision to place no coach or adult in any of the players' cabins and instead have a senior in charge of each cabin can certainly be viewed as ill-advised in hindsight or even negligent, but it does not suffice for criminal charges. It is unfortunately abundantly clear that the coaches did not know that the crimes committed by their players were being perpetrated...