Chesco D.A. defends investigation into Conestoga hazing case
WEST CHESTER » After nearly seven months of silence, the Chester County District Attorney’s Office this week issued an extraordinary review of the criminal case involving football players at Conestoga High School accused in a hazing incident that drew national attention.
In a six-page statement sent to area news outlets, District Attorney Tom Hogan, along with senior members of his staff, defended his office’s handling of the case, which began with allegations of sodomy in a locker room and ended with guilty pleas to the minor offense of harassment.
“At the end of the day, the prosecutors, detectives, defense lawyers, and the court all did their jobs in this case with integrity and fairness,” the statement read. “As with all criminal justice matters, we seek the truth, which is not always pretty and is seldom neat and orderly.”
The statement, the likes of which have rarely, if ever, been issued by the D.A.’s Office after a matter has been resolved in court, came out because of continuing criticism by members of he Tredyffrin-Easttown School District community over the way the case was handled, the D.A. stated. Some said that Hogan, in announcing the criminal charges against the teenage football players, “grandstanded” and overreached in accusing the students of far more serious offenses than what actually occurred.
Hogan charged that the criticism came from “a small and very vocal minority of Conestoga football supporters who continue to misrepresent and distort the hazing case. There have been factual misrepresentations, victim blaming and shaming, and a culture of denial.”
The D.A. said that even though his office and the defense attorneys had agreed to maintain silence over the case when it was settled in January because of the possible impact such criticism might have, his office sought permission from a judge to comment on the investigation, “to set the record straight.”
In response to the statement, attorneys for the youths involved were dismissive, of both it and the case itself.
“Based on all of the serious flaws in the prosecution’s case, the juveniles were allowed to enter an admission to a summary offense, the lowest grade offense under Pennsylvania law and an offense which is usually initiated by the filing of a simple citation,” said attorneys Vincent P. DiFabio, Michael J. Malloy, and Tim Woodard.
The attorneys said they would continue to remain silent about the specifics of the case in deference to the agreement made in January. Adding that the D.A.’s Office had agreed to clear the records of the three youths charged, the men said, “comments made in the District Attorney’s press release violate the spirit of the agreement to expunge those charges.”
The D.A.’s statement contains a detailed review of all circumstances surrounding the case from where it started to its aftermath. Hogan, in conclusion, said he determined that his office had done nothing wrong, and had in fact helped bring the issue of high school hazing to national attention.
In March 2016, Hogan called a news conference to announce the filing of criminal charges against three football players who he said had engaged in a culture of hazing at Conestoga, one of the nation’s most prominent and respected public high schools located on the Upper Main Line.
During events Hogan said were labeled “No Gay Thursdays,” younger players were subjected to embarrassing and sometimes physical acts of humiliation. During one of the incidents, he said, a younger player had been held down by teammates and poked in his rectum with a broom handle.
The youths were charged with assault, unlawful restraint, terroristic threats, possession of an instrument of crime, and conspiracy, all misdemeanors. None were charged with any sexual offense, as was pointed out in the defense attorneys’ response to Hogan’s statement. Hogan had said that the decision not to file those charges was done in deference to the alleged victim.
(In response to the allegations made about the culture of the football team, the T-E School Board terminated much of the coaching staff. One of those coaches, Tom Batgos, has since filed a defamation suit against district officials.)
But doubts about the case were raised soon after the charges were filed. The complaining witness, it was learned, was the defendant in a Conestoga “sexting” scandal that Hogan had publicized earlier. He and his father were investigated by the district for failing to comply with residency regulations, and he had been expelled.
In August, a video surfaced allegedly showing the youth who had been attacked telling a friend that what he had said about the attack was not true, before he again indicated it did in fact happen as he first alleged. In his review, Hogan characterized the leaking of that video to the news
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