Phi Beta Sigma members found NOT Guilty
 

By Herbert Lowe
STAFF WRITER

December 13, 2004, 3:28 PM EST


A Queens jury declared three Phi Beta Sigma members not guilty today
of severely beating a pledge with a paddle in the St. John's
University fraternity trial.

The defendants hugged one another while their mothers and supporters
erupted with a huge uproar after the jury foreman read the last
verdict in State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens.

Afterward, several jurors warmly greeted Anthony D'Abreu, 25, Matthew
Fraser, 24, and Phillipe Moreau, 32, each of whom had faced up to 7
years in prison if convicted of the sole charge, second-degree
assault.

"They're all good boys," said the foreman, John Tonkin, 54, a heating
inspector with the city Housing Authority. "I've got three grown boys of my own and if they were my boys, I'd be proud of them."

Prosecutors contended the defendants beat Brian Chambers so severely with a wooden paddle that he was hospitalized for two weeks.

Chambers, 22, testified that he was in so much pain from being
paddled 50 times in Kissena Park, on July 10, 2003, that "it felt
like my back was in a vise" when he went to a hospital 36 hours later.

"A majority of us felt that the prosecution didn't give us enough
evidence," said another juror, 27, a social work major at Borough of Manhattan Community College, who preferred to remain anonymous.

The defendants each testified during a month-long trial that they
were elsewhere when Chambers, then of Bay Ridge, was beaten. They also said Chambers was too early in his initiation process to be struck.

D'Abreu, of Canarsie, Fraser, of Queens Village, and Moreau, of
Jamaica, all St. John's graduates, testified that they were at a late-night Phi Beta Sigma planning meeting at Hunter College in Manhattan
that night.

"There is no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that they were in the
same county with him [Chambers] the night he was struck," Moreau's
attorney, Michael Connolly, said in his closing argument on Wednesday.

The jury of seven women and five men began deliberating Thursday.
Prosecutors contend the defendants wanted to ensure he did
not "skate" into the fraternity. They were also upset that another
pledge, Ryan Jackson, had quit, leaving Chambers to pledge alone.

"'You're getting more because Ryan's not here,'" Assistant District
Attorney Kimberley Nielsen, during her closing argument, quoted
Chambers as saying about the defendants telling him the night he was
beaten. "'Don't you wish your 'LB' [line brother] was here now.'"

Fraser and defense witnesses testified that Chambers showed no signs
of ailing while helping him and another Sigma, Karl Edwards, move
Edwards' fiancée's furniture the day after the alleged beating.

"I've known Brian for a long time," Fraser testified. "He didn't seem
any different that day than any normal day."

That's rigoddamneddiculous.

I am sickened by this verdict.

Didn't the guy have visible damage to him?

Wouldn't he know who beat him and be able to ID them?

And the judge was in the same fraternity?

And the jurors are proud of the defendants? Were they in the same fraternity?

I just don't understand how someone can be beaten and evidently know who beat him but it's swept under the rug...

If he was lying about who beat him put him in prison just so I know someone's in jail.

-Rudey

OJ's jury moved east
 

OJ's jury moved east, it appears, and it seems like the judge - from the same GLO - should have recused himself.

Re: Phi Beta Sigma members found NOT Guilty
 

Anyone else creeped out by that statement?

PsychTau

Re: Re: Phi Beta Sigma members found NOT Guilty
 

glad to know I'm not the only one...

PsychTau
 

PsychTau:

Shutterpoint says:

"This photographer cannnot be found.
Go Back"

Re: Phi Beta Sigma members found NOT Guilty
 

WTF!!!! How is that a defense to anything!!!

And the corroborating witnesses were??? Ummm lemme guess THEIR FRATERNITY BROTHERS!

Sad, all the way around...tells hazers that they can get off if the case is clouded enough to create reasonable doubt.

Re: OJ's jury moved east
 

OJ's jury?? :confused:

What does the judge have to do with the case? He didn't give the verdict.

However, I'm not happy with the verdict. I'm also upset at the young man who allowed himself to be hazed when he was already a member of the organization. Peer pressure is no excuse for a grown a$$ man. Not to mention the other brothers who participated in the hazing. I don't know what its going to take for the madness to stop.

Too early in the process??!?!?! :eek: So had he been farther along in the process, they'd have beat him to a pulp then? I'm sorry, but that is just insane.

Re: Re: OJ's jury moved east
 

A judge has a lot to do with the case. A judge isn't just someone who sits pretty and nods his head every so often.

As for the victim, well do you go around to women's shelters and ask why they allow themselves to be beaten?

I don't care who is arrested and put in jail. Arrest the guys who beat him or arrest him for lying, but someone needs to be in jail as far as I'm concerned because you can't be half-right about who beat your ass with a paddle.

-Rudey

Re: Re: Re: OJ's jury moved east
 

The Judge admitted to being a Sigma and said he would be able to do his job regardless of his affliation. If they felt that it wasn't cool couldn't they have asked for another judge?

I don't see the comparison between this case and domestic violence. This dude was already a Sigma and wanted to be hazed.

Re: Re: Re: Re: OJ's jury moved east
 

I don't know why they didn't ask for another judge. Perhaps the lawyer was incompetent. Perhaps it didn't matter.

The comparison is that this man is a victim and was beaten severely. He could have up'd and left but then again a woman who stays with her husband regardless of whether he beats her could have up'd and left as well.

As for him being a Sigma already: "They also said Chambers was too early in his initiation process to be struck." Doesn't that mean he's going through some process to get wherever the funk you gotta get and be initiated "to be a Sigma"? The whole process and early means there is more he has to go through.

-Rudey

Many things of the case seem out of whack and can be reviewed and called for a reversal or an adjudgement, reclusion, yes, Statements of this Nature lead to suspesion of previous wrong doing!

Dam are the Dum!:o

Nice Signature DimWit!:rolleyes:

the lawyer who didn't try to press the issue for the judge to recuse himself ought to be sued for malpractice! that's a pretty basic thing.

Re: Re: Phi Beta Sigma members found NOT Guilty
 

Yeah. It really jumps off the page at you, doesn't it?

Except the lawyer who would most likely want to move for the Judge's recusal would have been the Assistant State's Attorney who:

1. Probably appears before that Judge on a day to day basis, hence creating a minor problem of having to have the case re-assigned to a new judge and/or new set of state's attorneys

and

2. Probably can't be sued for malpractice (governmental immunity)

Further, the victim may have elected to take his chances with the case in front of that judge? Who is to say he wouldn't have been "biased" in the victim's favor, since the victim is also a Sigma? The judge may have had a strong distaste for the alleged hazers.

Any of these scenarios could be the reason why the recusal didn't happen.

Re: Re: Phi Beta Sigma members found NOT Guilty
 

that really stood out like a sore thumb.

Add me to the list of people creeped out by the 'too early in the process to be beat' statement.

Thats just disturbing. I hope someone at nationals will act on that statement alone.

Re: Re: Re: Re: OJ's jury moved east
 

And that right there(underlined) is why the case was a bunch of b.s. to begin with. The judge said he was a sigma(Why not ask for another non-sigma for a judge?) And it's obvious that he didn't want to "skate" himself. :rolleyes:

And the last statement had witnesses say and I quote:

So what, he just up and fainted for 2 weeks in the hospital like a week after he was beaten and then he has a case? Da hell? :rolleyes:

Imperial1

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: OJ's jury moved east
 

Sorry I just read this thread today. Rudey if you had read other articles on the case you would have seen that both he and the person that he was with were being POST PLEDGED and had been intiated nearly a year before I think it was but didn't feel as though they were being respected. They were part of the chapter coming back to campus and had done things "by the book" and were not being "embraced" in the manner I guess they felt entitled to. Both he and another young man OPTED to go through a "process" in order to gain that respect.

As for the judge, the only person that would have potentially been done a disservice by him remaining on the case AND being a Sigma would have been the accuser not the accused. From all reports nothing inappropriate was done with evidence or statements to the jury so the judge really did what he was supposed to do. The problem comes in with the defense witnesses, as someone already said, who were frat brothers of the defendents and who MAY have been willing to provide alibis. But then again they could have swung by the frat house on the way to beat the boys behind so they technically weren't lying. Regardless, I think this is more of a problem within BGLO life than could have been reasonably represented in a court case with people unfamiliar with that culture.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: OJ's jury moved east
 

OK you're saying he was already a member and not a pledge and that he wanted to be beaten so it's not hazing.

If I told you I enjoyed pain and wanted you to stab me in my stomach, what would the police do to you? You can call it BGLO culture, but at some point culture becomes irrelevant.

A woman allows a man to beat her and essentially gives him permission to do so because she is in some sort of abusive relationship.

This kid was beaten. He obviously didn't beat himself. He identified who beat him.

Just for being fair and because I don't like stupidity, I'd send the guy who got beaten to jail too if it could be proved he asked for it.

-Rudey

I dont know what happened and everyone in this forum dont know but all we can do is speculate. I put it you this way, if he wanted another process and he was a brother already then his "by the book" process was done wrong and was in the frat for the wrong reasons. i think the older brother could of educated him instead of anything else that was claimed. now i dont know his exact injuries but i do know that people stated that saw him the day of the suppose incident and stated he looked fine, these are people outside the frat. Now we all know that you can be in the hospital for a long time with minor injuries. do i think something probably went on? YES but we will never know. a jury found them not guilty so we need to repect that and hope those brothers, victims and the aquitted, well on the rest of there lives. What i hate the most in this case is that the brother though he would have to go through this process to be repected. This brother was asking about a second process for a long time. and i knwo for a fact he was told that would not be nessessary. i think this goes to the image that us as black greek put out there so people expect to "pledge hard" to get in our respected org. i think we need to kill that stereo type and publicly state we should not and will not haze. I know we may say it as a informational or at a formal event but what about the one-on-one chats? or when we at a party talking about how "hard" we pledge or how other people are "corny" for doing it "by the book". This is a bigger issue than this case in my opinion.

Just b/c something is part of a culture doesn't make it right, and doesn't change the law.

Genital mutilation is a part of several cultures.

To my knowledge all NPHC organizations have statements on their websites and have made it known on several occassions that we are non-hazing organizations. We need to stop TALKING and start ACTING. Especially if we want our beloved organizations to be around 100 years from now.

I'm not going to speak on my personal feelings of right or wrong. What I'd like to know, from anyone, why is genital mutilation wrong? Is it wrong because it's something that makes us uncomfortable to think about? Or is it objectively wrong...if so, who decides the objective wrongness of it?

From the Amnesty International website:

The physical and psychological effects of female genital mutilation

Physical effects
The effects of genital mutilation can lead to death. At the time the mutilation is carried out, pain, shock, haemorrhage and damage to the organs surrounding the clitoris and labia can occur. Afterwards urine may be retained and serious infection develop. Use of the same instrument on several girls without sterilization can cause the spread of HIV.

More commonly, the chronic infections, intermittent bleeding, abscesses and small benign tumours of the nerve which can result from clitoridectomy and excision cause discomfort and extreme pain.

Infibulation can have even more serious long-term effects: chronic urinary tract infections, stones in the bladder and urethra, kidney damage, reproductive tract infections resulting from obstructed menstrual flow, pelvic infections, infertility, excessive scar tissue, keloids (raised, irregularly shaped, progressively enlarging scars) and dermoid cysts.

First sexual intercourse can only take place after gradual and painful dilation of the opening left after mutilation. In some cases, cutting is necessary before intercourse can take place. In one study carried out in Sudan, 15% of women interviewed reported that cutting was necessary before penetration could be achieved.1 Some new wives are seriously damaged by unskilful cutting carried out by their husbands. A possible additional problem resulting from all types of female genital mutilation is that lasting damage to the genital area can increase the risk of HIV transmission during intercourse.

During childbirth, existing scar tissue on excised women may tear. Infibulated women, whose genitals have been tightly closed, have to be cut to allow the baby to emerge. If no attendant is present to do this, perineal tears or obstructed labour can occur. After giving birth, women are often reinfibulated to make them "tight" for their husbands. The constant cutting and restitching of a women's genitals with each birth can result in tough scar tissue in the genital area.

The secrecy surrounding FGM, and the protection of those who carry it out, make collecting data about complications resulting from mutilation difficult. When problems do occur these are rarely attributed to the person who performed the mutilation. They are more likely to be blamed on the girl's alleged "promiscuity" or the fact that sacrifices or rituals were not carried out properly by the parents. Most information is collected retrospectively, often a long time after the event. This means that one has to rely on the accuracy of the woman's memory, her own assessment of the severity of any resulting complications, and her perception of whether any health problems were associated with mutilation.

Some data on the short and long-term medical effects of FGM, including those associated with pregnancy, have been collected in hospital or clinic-based studies, and this has been useful in acquiring a knowledge of the range of health problems that can result. However, the incidence of these problems, and of deaths as a result of mutilation, cannot be reliably estimated. Supporters of the practice claim that major complications and problems are rare, while opponents of the practice claim that they are frequent.

Effects on sexuality
Genital mutilation can make first intercourse an ordeal for women. It can be extremely painful, and even dangerous, if the woman has to be cut open; for some women, intercourse remains painful. Even where this is not the case, the importance of the clitoris in experiencing sexual pleasure and orgasm suggests that mutilation involving partial or complete clitoridectomy would adversely affect sexual fulfilment. Clinical considerations and the majority of studies on women's enjoyment of sex suggest that genital mutilation does impair a women's enjoyment. However, one study found that 90% of the infibulated women interviewed reported experiencing orgasm.2 The mechanisms involved in sexual enjoyment and orgasm are still not fully understood, but it is thought that compensatory processes, some of them psychological, may mitigate some of the effects of removal of the clitoris and other sensitive parts of the genitals.

Psychological effects
The psychological effects of FGM are more difficult to investigate scientifically than the physical ones. A small number of clinical cases of psychological illness related to genital mutilation have been reported.3 Despite the lack of scientific evidence, personal accounts of mutilation reveal feelings of anxiety, terror, humiliation and betrayal, all of which would be likely to have long-term negative effects. Some experts suggest that the shock and trauma of the operation may contribute to the behaviour described as "calmer" and "docile", considered positive in societies that practise female genital mutilation.

Festivities, presents and special attention at the time of mutilation may mitigate some of the trauma experienced, but the most important psychological effect on a woman who has survived is the feeling that she is acceptable to her society, having upheld the traditions of her culture and made herself eligible for marriage, often the only role available to her. It is possible that a woman who did not undergo genital mutilation could suffer psychological problems as a result of rejection by the society. Where the FGM-practising community is in a minority, women are thought to be particularly vulnerable to psychological problems, caught as they are between the social norms of their own community and those of the majority culture.


Sounds pretty wrong to me!

Dee

I know what FGM is. At this point I should speak on my morality. Yes, I believe FGM is wrong but only because I base my morality on Jesus' rules and example.

My question was a philosophical one. So, why it FGM wrong? Just because it's wrong to us? What about people who's opinion on morality is different? Who are we to make their decisions for them?

Perhaps I should end this right here because I'm seriously hijacking!! Sorry!

I only posted the physical effects of FGM to show why I thought it was wrong. It's physically harmful to the woman.

Afterward, several jurors warmly greeted Anthony D'Abreu, 25, Matthew
Fraser, 24, and Phillipe Moreau, 32

those dudes are all older...

nothing wrong with that, but damn what is the average age of that chapter

I mean, yes it is crazy the severity of his injuries. It should have never gone that far. Senseless beatings do not equal a good process.

However, this case wasn't gonna stick because old boy kept changing up his story. One minute he did it because he didn't want to be an outcast, the next minute it was because he didn't want his boy to go through it alone but that doesn't explain why he was the ONLY one left online, others had dropped. I mean the boy was the President of his Organization, he wasn't some niave sophomore caught up in the process. They asked him did he want to go on right after he crossed, he said no... a year passed and they asked again he said okay.

I mean I could see if it was a hazing incident---but you are talking about assualt. You can't put it on the same level as domestic violence because it's not the same. While the guys accused were in the wrong, some of the responsibility has to be put on the dude because he lost site as to what it meant to be greek.