No Charges Pursued in Westlake High Hazing Case

Authorities officially closed the criminal investigation into Westlake High School’s hazing scandal Monday after parents of four victims declined to press charges.

“They wanted to do what was best for all the kids, including their own,” said Sgt. Rod Mendoza, spokesman for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. “They thought the school was handling it adequately.”

At the same time, several wrestlers are appealing the punishment the school has imposed, which ranges from suspension to a year’s ban on playing school sports.

And some parents, including wrestling Coach Scott Little, are questioning how the school handled the controversy, including the immediate cancellation of the team’s season.

“I think the discipline that took place was appropriate, but the way it came about was convoluted and inappropriate,” Little said Monday. “To announce it to the newspapers--there were bizarre sexual acts and gross team misconduct--that’s uncalled for.”

School officials could not be reached for comment, but Mendoza said he understood their response.

“The incident occurred, and I think the school has sent out a strong message by how they are dealing with it,” he said. “That type of behavior will not be tolerated, and kids should be able to go to school without being assaulted or treated cruelly.”

The conclusion of the criminal inquiry caps a seven-week investigation into what authorities described as “seven or eight” hazing incidents in which students were grabbed, pinned down and prodded in the buttocks with a broomstick handle.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert Sparks on Monday characterized the incidents, which occurred over a two-week period in late November and early December, as horseplay that got out of hand.

He said investigators identified four victims--three boys and a girl--but none of their parents wanted to pursue the cases, which at most could have resulted in misdemeanor assault and battery charges.

Detectives concluded early in their investigation that because the incidents were not considered sexual in nature, they were not felonies.

“In misdemeanor cases we always seek the desires of the victims,” Sparks said. “In felony cases it’s a decision made by the district attorney’s office.”

Word of the investigation’s conclusion pleased some parents of Westlake wrestlers, who have said repeatedly that nothing criminal took place in the gym mezzanine last fall.

“I’m not surprised at all that there were no criminal charges filed,” said parent Wendy Margolis, whose son Daniel is appealing his one-year athletics ban. “It wasn’t a criminal matter. It was a matter of bad behavior, certainly, but it wasn’t criminal.”

From the day the season was canceled, many parents have contended that school administrators bungled the in-house investigation.

One parent, Bill Hutton, an investigator with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, said he has completed his own research into the hazing allegations.

He promised to release his results after Thursday’s hearing, when a committee will hear his son’s appeal of his one-year athletics ban, he said.

“At this point, I really am not vindictive toward anyone,” Hutton said Monday. “I just think there was a comedy of errors that caused our kids and others some grief. And it’s too bad.”

School officials handed out “in-house suspensions” to seven of the 30 team members involved and barred another four from participating in any sports through mid-December.

A few of the young men who received five-day in-house suspensions--meaning they studied in solitude or picked up trash on campus--have already had their discipline reduced to three days, parents say.

Several other wrestlers will learn their fate after Thursday’s hearing.

Because of the pending appeals hearings, some parents contacted Monday were reluctant to discuss the situation. Privately, they said school officials blew out of proportion the hazing allegations and scratched the season before looking at all the facts.

Many of the parents believe only one minor hazing incident occurred. One other incident, they claim, was mere horseplay among friends, witnessed by a teacher. The parents declined to elaborate on their contentions until after the appeals hearings.

Some wrestlers have been subjected to harassment at school as a result of the incident, parents said.

Little, who was in his second year as coach of the program, believes that fallout from the incidents may have been a death knell for the wrestling program.

“Who is going to want to be involved in that program with that kind of smear on its name,” he said, adding that wrestling has never been a big sport at the school. “I don’t know whether the program will ever be resurrected.”

After the appeals have been heard, a group of parents is expected to submit to top school district officials a list of suggestions for avoiding similar problems in the future.

Included on the list are recommendations that anyone in a top administrative post at a school should:

* Take media-relations seminars;

* Receive conflict-resolution training; and

* Take classes in analytic interviewing of students, victims and witnesses.

To the best of Margolis’ knowledge, she said, no legal remedies are being pursued by irate parents.

“I just want Daniel’s season back, but that’s not going to happen,” she said. “I don’t know what the final chapter will be.”

Nick Green is a correspondent and Kate Folmar is a Times staff writer.