New allegations made in Wilson hazing case
A Wilson baseball player says he asked school personnel to do something to stop the sexual hazing against younger members of the team, but was told he would be suspended and the police called if he did not drop the matter.
This is among the accusations in a legal claim recently served on the Wilson school district by lawyers for two alleged victims.
School officials also allegedly were told last year of a sexual hazing attack in which a player was sodomized with a baseball bat. And when nothing was done, the sodomy victim from last year became one of the alleged attackers in this year’s sexual hazing on the baseball team bus, according to the notice of claim, a precursor to a possible lawsuit.
The legal claim alleges school officials were warned about hazing incidents involving the baseball team two years before the alleged sexual abuse on a bus this spring.
It was filed in the aftermath of three varsity baseball players being charged with sexually abusing at least two members of the junior varsity team April 17 during a bus ride back to Wilson from games in Niagara Falls.
Two coaches aboard the bus have been charged with endangering the welfare of a child, and stand accused by State Police of failing to prevent the alleged sex-related attacks.
The legal papers do not identify Wilson school officials by name, only referring to them as district “representatives.”
More detailed accusations about what happened on the bus ride — as well as what some school district officials knew about all the incidents and when — are contained in the papers, obtained by The Buffalo News through the Freedom of Information Act.
Among them:
• Four adults, including coaches, were on the bus at the time of the attack. Coaches were told about violent behavior before the April bus trip was over, as well as after the team arrived back in Wilson. The player who asked school personnel to intervene did so while standing beside one of the victims in a school parking lot — but no further action was taken.
• One of the victims was attacked on the team bus on the way back from a game in Albion five days later. He already was one of two students who had become specific targets of hazing and other violence by varsity players.
• A school official observed less severe incidents last year, then told the players to go back to their seats on the bus. For discipline, extra running was doled out at practice.
“The notice of claim speaks for itself,” said Terrence M. Connors, an attorney for the families of two alleged victims.
This year’s attack involved a varsity player sitting on the first victim’s chest to restrain him, while he was beaten and a cell phone was inserted into his rectum, the legal papers claim.
The second victim also was restrained, beaten and had “what felt like multiple fingers” inserted into his rectum, the papers said.
The player who was sodomized with the bat last year said he participated in this year’s attack “because things like that happened to me before,” according to the notice of claim.
He also admitted using a cell phone in this year’s sexual assault, the document claims.
It also claims the father of the victim- turned-attacker called a school representative after the baseball bat incident last year, and players were told to run extra laps at practice as discipline.
The papers claim varsity players began targeting JV players “for beatings” on trips to and from away games roughly around the 2006 season. Hazing intensified by the next season, and regularly included pinning younger players to floor in the back of the bus, according to the papers.
Once they were down, the papers claim, younger players had worn jock straps placed over their noses and mouths, were subject to poking at their buttocks and rectums with various items, as well as genital abuse.
Attackers also “otherwise assaulted and battered them,” according to the document.
A Wilson school representative saw this type of hazing occur multiple times, the legal papers added, and the response was to have the players go back to their seats, as well as extra running doled out at team practice.
About May 2007, another player told his mother about physical abuse he and one of this year’s victims suffered at baseball practice. On two separate occasions, she talked with a school representative and was assured the problem would be resolved, the legal document claims.
Two coaches, William M. Atlas and Thomas J. Baia, were charged on April 29, one week after one of this year’s victims was attacked a second time.
Both have been suspended with pay from their teaching positions and have been replaced in their other coaching positions for the fall season. Each faces three counts of child endangerment.
Atlas, 35, is an elementary school physical education teacher. Baia, 40, is a middle school math teacher.
Law enforcement sources told The Buffalo News earlier this year about a 2007 incident in which the player and his parent complained to school officials. For a time, a coach sat in the back of the bus to monitor players’ behavior, sources said.
The Niagara County District Attorney’s Office has made the three players accused in this year’s case a plea offer that would allow them to plead guilty to a charge of forcible touching, a class A misdemeanor, as well as three counts of second-degree hazing, a violation.
The players — an 18-year-old and two 16-year-olds — originally were charged with a count of felony third-degree aggravated sexual abuse and a misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child under 17.
The 18-year-old also was charged with a second count of third-degree aggravated sexual abuse.
An attorney for one of the accused 16-year-olds said last month the district attorney’s office has not produced medical evidence suggesting any object, including a cell phone, was used to penetrate a body opening of anyone on the bus this year, as alleged.
Lawyer Kevin P. Shelby compared the incident to a fraternity initiation, which, he said, had no sexual overtones.
Wilson Superintendent Michael Wendt, through a district spokeswoman, declined to comment for this story.
When asked in May about the report of a 2007 incident, Wilson High School Principal Daniel Johnson told The News that information about it was never reported up the chain of command.
“Had I been aware that there was a problem on the bus, I would have taken swift and immediate action to eliminate it,” Johnson said. “But I was never made aware that there was a problem on the bus.”
Charles Jufer, the district’s athletic director, also said at the time he was unaware of any previous problems.
“There are many things that are taken care of by a teacher or coach that never reach my office,” Jufer said.
