Indicted Forever

August 27, 2007
The Times of Trenton
By Richard Lavinthal

This is a corrected reprint of an op-ed that ran in September 4's Times of Trenton.

In 1987, a Bronx, N.Y., trial jury found Raymond Donovan, President Ronald Reagan secretary of labor, innocent of larceny and fraud charges. After the verdict was read, Donovan, a Bayonne native, shouted angrily to Prosecutor Stephen Bookin, "Give me back my reputation."

Twenty years later, two unfairly disgraced Rider University administrators in New Jersey transitioned from three-plus weeks of hell into a lifetime of embarrassment. On Tuesday, their indictment on aggravated hazing charges was simply dismissed. They fared even worse than Donovan. At least his innocence was confirmed with an acquittal.

Ada Badgley, the university's director of Greek life, and Dr. Anthony Campbell, dean of students were now, according to the Mercer County prosecutor, victims of a runaway grand jury. Joseph L. Bocchini Jr. didn't say they were innocent, didn't offer an apology, and somehow managed to spin this "law and disorder" event past the media.

How soon will it be before Campbell and Badgley hire new attorneys to sue Bocchini and Mercer County for the thousands they've probably paid in legal fees, for the damage to their reputations, and as icing on the cake, a complete public exoneration and apology that also would be posted on the prosecutor's Web site forever.

Why forever? Because the Internet can keep reputations damaged forever, even when persons are acquitted. When Ray Donovan was acquitted, "practical obscurity" still existed. In 1987, there were fewer than 30,000 IP addresses in the world. The first browser would not even be invented until 1990. Today, an estimated nearly 30 billion Web pages exist, according to boutell.com (www.boutell.com/newfaq/misc/sizeofweb.html).

Campbell's and Badgley's indictments cannot fade quietly into practical obscurity. They'll be out there in cyberspace's 30 billion Web pages 24/7 into perpetuity for anyone who Googles either of their names.

Mr. Bocchini trumpeted the indictment of the administrators and three others in news events on Aug. 3, telling the Associated Press, "The ramifications of this for colleges and universities in New Jersey, and across the country, is that it will send some kind of message that the standards of college life, when it relates to alcohol, need to be policed carefully."

By Aug. 28, he was asking a New Jersey Superior Court Judge to dismiss the charges against Campbell and Badgley. According to the Newark Star-Ledger, Bocchini and his staff reviewed the evidence and grand jury transcripts and, "he and his staff concluded they did not have proof that either official had `facilitated' the fraternity party."

How could justice be so ill served? Why did they waste taxpayer dollars to indict the two in the media? The prosecutor told the Star-Ledger that he can see how "the grand jury, who are lay persons, after reviewing the evidence and having the benefit of listening to recorded statements, could have reached the conclusion there was probable cause."

We know grand juries are supposed to be secret, but was this one so secret that even the prosecutor, who baby-sits it, didn't know it was a runaway grand jury? Are we to believe that Bocchini just realized that justice was being miscarried?

I checked the coverage since Aug. 3, and can't find an instance were Bocchini even alluded (or said off the record to someone) to an inexperienced grand jury that may have hijacked the process. Only on the day of the dismissal did this excuse appear.

Prosecutors direct grand juries. We know the old chestnut about indicting the "ham sandwich," and the prosecutor is usually the short-order cook.

If the grand jury had been warned but still refused to listen to admonitions that there was not enough evidence to convict yet returned a true bill anyway, Bocchini should have sought to seal the indictment — while no one knew about it and the runaway grand jury's indictment could have been addressed in silence and probably solved.

But the prosecutor didn't worry; instead, he held a news conference.

If concerns about proof existed on Aug. 3, the prosecutor could have issued a bare-bones news release or none at all. He should not have added fuel to a fire that will continue to burn Campbell and Badgley in Internet hell forever. (The prosecutor's news release dated Aug. 3 is still posted on the office's Web site. It's 1 p.m. on Thursday and no news release or explanation regarding the dropping or charges has been posted, two days after the dismissals.)

The lure of today's 24/7/365 news media is hard to resist. The prosecutor got a national platform, 15 minutes of fame. Print and electronic press across the globe reported the first charges of its kind against college administrators.

It's now time for the media to take a tough, journalistic look at what happened. The same for whoever supervises county prosecutors in the Garden State.

How soon will Campbell and Badgley file their lawsuits? I suggest that they get one of the attorneys now representing one of the unfortunate Duke lacrosse players in their actions against former prosecutor Mike Nifong.

Richard Lavinthal (http://www.Lavinthal.com) is a former N.J. Statehouse wire service and daily newspaper reporter, who developed the first legal news Web site of its kind for a prosecutor's office. After creating the U.S. Department of Justice's Public Affairs Office in New Jersey, he managed it for a decade, serving as chief spokesman for former U.S. Attorneys Samuel A. Alito Jr., Michael Chertoff, and Faith S. Hochberg, A former Director of Communications for the N.J. (State) Division of Criminal Justice and Director of Criminal Justice Programs for APBnews.com in New York City, today Lavinthal is Managing Director of PRforLAW, LLC, (http://www.PRforLAW.com), providing legal media media relations strategy for major case milestones, specializing in criminal and civil matters under seal, under investigation, or not-yet-public. A media relations lecturer, Lavinthal also blogs at prPROpinon.com. Copyright Richard Lavinthal 2007. All rights reserved.


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