No Charges Pursued in Westlake 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.

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.”

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.

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.

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