Greg Tufaro

@GregTufaro

Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan%2C D-Middlesex%2C says entire coaching staff should be dismissed

Attorney who will meet with one of the victims calls alleged crime %22rape%22

Divided community hopes to begin healing at Sunday night vigil in the borough

Some or all of the players could be tried as adults

After seven Sayreville football players were charged in connection with the alleged hazing and sexual assaults of four teammates in the high school's locker room, an organizer of a community vigil for the victims hopes the event can unite a town divided.

"What I am hoping for is that everyone comes together," Maureen Jenkins, a resident of the borough's Parlin section, said of the vigil, which will be held at Kennedy Park on Washington Road, across the street from the high school on Sunday at 6 p.m.

"There is so much collateral damage, and that's for every kid in that school who has to live with this black cloud over their head. As a community, we need to come together to help support the victims."

Citing the black eye the scandal has given the borough, Jenkins said, "We are all victims here."

What you need to know about Sayreville football scandal

The arrests late Friday night of the seven players, all aged 15 to 17, came just five days after Schools Superintendent Rich Labbe announced he was shutting down the entire football program in response to what he described at the time as pervasive and widespread bullying.

Labbe's decision brought national attention to the high school and polarized the working-class community as many players and their parents vehemently protested his move during a school board meeting earlier this week.

Former Sayreville football coach Sal Mistretta, who laid the groundwork that enabled the program to become one of the state's most successful, said now that charges have been filed, any ambiguity regarding the allegations should be eliminated.

"I think this dismisses any kind of doubt whether this was normal lockerroom behavior as some people have been saying," Mistretta said.

"I think this cements the severity of the crime and the fact that this is something some people have been minimizing. Hopefully they now realize that the program had to be shut down or that drastic measures had to be taken, and the superintendent did the right thing."

Tufaro: Angry Sayreville parents must focus on what's important

Three of the players are charged with aggravated sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual contact, conspiracy to commit aggravated criminal sexual contact, criminal restraint, and hazing for engaging in an act of sexual penetration upon one of the victims, according to Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey.

One of those players and the remaining four teammates were charged with various counts including aggravated assault, conspiracy, aggravated criminal sexual contact, hazing and riot by participating in the attack of the remaining victims, Carey said.

"It's rape," Woodbridge-based attorney Ray Gill, who is scheduled to meet next week with the family of one of the victims, told MyCentralJersey.com.

The complaints charge that on various dates between Sept. 19 and Sept. 29 one or more of the players either held the victims against their will, while others improperly touched the victims in a sexual manner.

It also is charged that in one instance, one of the victims was kicked during an attack.

Legal experts, including a former assistant county prosecutor and a former assistant district attorney, told MyCentralJersey.com that the juveniles could be tried as adults because aggravated sexual assault is a first-degree criminal offense. Some charged could face up to five years in prison if convicted.

Sayreville head football coach George Najjar, a tenured physical education teacher at the high school who makes about $85,000 annually according to a public records search, was not criminally charged, nor were any of his assistant coaches. All were responsible for the supervision of their players inside the lockerroom.

Sayreville coach George Najjar has no comment on report

Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan, D-Middlesex, who chairs the Assembly's Education Committee, said he does not believe any of the coaches should be retained.

"There has to be some consequences for this type of repulsive event," Diegnan said." At best, it's a lack of attention on their part. At worst, it's malfeasance. Either way, there has to be accountability."

Reached on his cell phone, Labbe, who began his teaching career at Sayreville in 1990 and previously served as an assistant football coach at the high school, declined to comment beyond a statement he issued Friday night.

"In the ensuing days, weeks, and months, we will come together as a school district and greater community to harness the strength required to support the young men who may have been victimized and then to begin the healing process for our beloved community," Labbe said in his statement following the arrests.

"As should be evident by now, the Sayreville Board of Education takes this matter extremely seriously and thus will continue to make the safety and welfare of our students, particularly the victims of these horrendous alleged acts, our highest priority."

Six of the players were detained by law enforcement Friday night and the seventh surrendered to police early Saturday morning. Citing state laws that protect the identities of juvenile defendants, Carey said he could not disclose the names or current locations of the players who have been charged. They are either being held at a detention facility or have been released to the custody of their parents or guardians pending a hearing. Under state law, complaints signed against juveniles are not public records and cannot be released.

According to NJ Advance Media, police were seen arriving at the homes of Sayreville senior team captains Myles Hartsfield, a star running back and safety who is committed to Penn State University, and Dylan Thillet, who played on the offensive and defensive lines. It is not known if either player was charged.

Thillet's mother, Madeline, said during last week's contentious school board meeting, during which dozens of players and their parents protested Labbe's decision to shut down the football program, "I was at the police station with him when they were questioning him. They were talking about a butt being grabbed. That's about it. No one was hurt. No one died. I don't understand why they're being punished."

The defendants will be required to appear before a Superior Court Judge in Family Court, but the hearing date has not been determined. Juvenile hearings are not open to the public. No other court hearings have been scheduled.

Gov. Chris Christie last week called the allegations surrounding the Sayreville football program "extraordinarily disturbing'' and "a nightmare for the parents of those young men.''

F. Clark Power, a professor of psychology and education at the University of Notre Dame who presents workshops on hazing nationally through his Play Like A Champion program, said he believes the victims could be psychologically scarred from the alleged abuse.

"People who have been abused often blame themselves or feel inadequate, so there are all kinds of outcomes with this sort of thing," Power said. "You are talking about what is this child's upbringing, where is the child in terms of his sexual identity, is this child at a point where he can get help to process this? This is a pretty serious thing."

Labbe said last week that the school district remains on stand-by with crisis counselors, guidance counselors, a school psychologist and an outside agency for any students that might need any form of counseling, whether they were victims or impacted in another way regarding the situation.

No other incidents of similar alleged sexual assault among New Jersey high school football players have been documented since 1988, when players on the Lyndhurst team allegedly forced a sophomore to sodomize a teammate with his finger while dozens of upperclassmen gawked, according to published reports that said two upperclassmen were kicked off that squad but no coaches were disciplined.

"Let us hope as a result of this outrageous, unacceptable reprehensible situation that took place in Sayreville that we don't need to legislate common sense that every coach, if they aren't already aware, should be aware that supervision is needed in the locker room area," Diegnan said.

According to Matt Hammond, who was part of the Sayreville program for the 2003 season, the team's coaching staff during his time there rarely supervised players in the locker room on practice or game days.

"I can count on two hands the number of times that George or any other assistant coaches were in the locker room," he said. "Actually, I don't remember another assistant coach being in the locker room for practices, games, everything. The only times that George or anyone was ever in the locker room — and it was only ever George — was for the vaguely religious pregame prayer."

Labbe will determine the employment status of Najjar and his staff once the school district completes its internal investigation into the allegations. Labbe said last week that the school district will discuss what disciplinary action will be taken against the alleged perpetrators once charges are filed against them. He added that the Sayreville Police Department will provide additional school resource officers, "so once we do learn of the courageous kids that did come forward, we will go to all measures to protect them."

School Board President Kevin Ciak said the district could not begin its investigation into the football program until authorities concluded theirs.

An assistant superintendent has already started to review the supervisory practices of the high school's other athletics programs.

Several former players and assistant coaches from different eras, including Malik Pressley, who played four seasons at Sayreville and graduated from the high school earlier this year, said they were unaware of any previous lockerroom misconduct.

"Nobody did anything," Pressley said. "We just played football. When I was there, everything was fine."

On Oct. 2, the locker room attacks first came to the attention of school officials, who announced at the time that Sayreville's game for that night against South Brunswick had been postponed due to "serious unforeseen circumstances."

During a press conference the following day, Labbe announced that Sayreville had forfeited to South Brunswick and that the team's future would be determined on a "day-to-day" basis because law enforcement was investigating allegations of a "significant and serious nature."

On Monday, following a two-hour meeting with parents in the high school cafeteria, Labbe announced during another press conference that the team's season had been canceled.

"We are standing up and making a statement here that we are not tolerating that behavior by any of our student-athletes, and that we take their safety and welfare first and foremost into consideration and that everyone on that team has a responsibility to stand up and protect one another, and that was not done," Labbe said at the time.

"We need our kids to stop being bystanders and start being upstanders and to report it when someone is harassing, intimidating and bullying one of their peers. We are standing up together as a Board of Education and as a district in saying no to bullying in Sayreville, and we are inviting others to join us in our stance."

NJ Advance Media's Matt Stanmyre, citing information from the parent of one of the victims who spoke on condition of anonymity, reported earlier this week in graphic detail how the locker room assaults took place.

"It would start with a howling noise from a senior football player at Sayreville War Memorial High School, and then the locker room lights were abruptly shut off," Stanmyre reported. "In the darkness, a freshman football player would be pinned to the locker-room floor, his arms and feet held down by multiple upperclassmen. Then, the victim would be lifted to his feet while a finger was forced into his rectum. Sometimes, the same finger was then shoved into the freshman player's mouth."

One of the state's most successful public school programs, Sayreville won New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association championships three of the past four years, but will see its streak of 18 consecutive postseason appearances come to an end this season.

"It's embarrassing," said James Bueno, 29, of Sayreville. "Even though it's just a handful of kids it's going to give the entire town a bad reputation."

Najjar, who has compiled a 162-49 record at Sayreville, previously coached at Brooklyn's Abraham Lincoln High School, where several of his former players, according to a NJ Advance Media report, "recounted initiation rituals during preseason camp that included Animal House-style paddling of underclassmen by upperclassmen."

Paddling reportedly occurred when Najjar coached in NY

One player said Najjar put a stop to the paddling when he became aware of the activity and school officials, including alumni director Fred Newman, who worked at Lincoln during Najjar's tenure (1983-94), told MyCentralJersey.com they were unaware of any impropriety.

Najjar, who has declined comment on five different days since the scandal broke on Oct. 2, could not be reached via cell phone on Saturday.

On Oct. 2, the same day Sayreville postponed its game against South Brunswick, defensive coordinator Charlie Garcia was arrested for possession of steroids. His arrest was not related to the game's postponement.

News of the players being arrested on Friday came on the same night Sayreville was scheduled to play its homecoming game against Monroe.

Penn State University coach James Franklin, whose school has offered Hartsfield a full scholarship, said during a press conference earlier this week that he is monitoring the Sayreville situation closely. Among the state's best players, Hartsfield has 3,792 all-purpose yards, 88 tackles, seven interceptions and 49 touchdowns for his career.

"We do have a young man that's committed to us from that school," Franklin said shortly before Stanmyre detailed the allegations.

Under NCAA rules, coaches are precluded from talking specifically about a player until he has signed a National Letter of Intent.

"You guys know just as much as we do at this point," Franklin said. "We are waiting to hear."

Staff writer Greg Tufaro: gtufaro@MyCentralJersey.com