Another Hazing Incident Revealed At Maine West High School
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A hazing scandal at Maine West High School is expanding, following revelations of an incident involving the baseball team back in 2008.
The altercation involved freshman baseball players coached by Michael DiVincenzo, who has been reassigned with pay following more recent hazing incidents involving his boy's varsity soccer team.
According to a statement from Maine Township school officials, a freshman player's pants were pulled down in the locker room by four other teammates in the spring of 2008.
Maine Township district officials said they were made aware of the incident on Nov. 16 of this year. However, the students involved were interviewed and disciplined at the school level.
"The students involved were interviewed by the school's deans and had discipline consequences assigned,'' the district said in a statement sent to CBS on Monday.
That incident was reported to the school district around the time that a lawsuit was filed on behalf of a player on Maine West's soccer team.
The family's attorney, Antonio Romanucci, says that five current or former soccer players have told him they were also hazed.
The teenager at the center of the lawsuit says he was held down, beaten and sexually assaulted by older players on the school's soccer field in late September.
District 207 Supt. Ken Wallace is now urging families to report any other hazing incidents to the school district.
"Our board of education policies are clear as they relate to hazing and bullying and do not tolerate acts of the nature that have been reported," Wallace said in a statement.
