[momoftwo]

From the local newspaper...

Hazing videos to air at teen's trial
BY IRV LEAVITT
STAFF WRITER

Amateur videotapes of the May 4 "powder puff" incident made it a worldwide event, and now, the tapes have moved to the center of the first scheduled trial of a defendant in the incident.

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Chambers, hearing pre-trial arguments Friday in the misdemeanor battery case against Gina Mengarelli, 18, said showing five or six lengthy tapes to jurors likely means it will take five days to try a case that typically might be completed in hours.

He noted that not only will jurors have to sit through the tapes, but they'll also hear testimony of each of the youths who held the cameras, explaining what they saw. Jury selection was scheduled for Wednesday.

Prosecutor Joan Pernecke said the state expects to call a score of witnesses, including doctors who will testify to injuries two Glenbrook North High School students claim Mengarelli inflicted.

Defense attorney Steven Decker said he plans to only call three or four witnesses.

Decker argued Friday that the tapes shouldn't be allowed as evidence at all, because they were shot without the "powder puff" participants' permission, and therefore violate Illinois' anti-eavesdropping statute. "There's not a scintilla of evidence that anyone there knew their voices were being recorded," he said.

Pernecke's co-prosecutor, Mark Anderson, said he believed Mengarelli and all the other youths present at the Chipilly Woods site saw the video cameras, and were aware their voices could be picked up. "All these individuals were seen by all the other individuals," he said. "Case law ... defines eavesdropping as a conversation that is private and that is recorded secretly."

Decker maintained not only that the tapes should not be allowed as evidence, but also that those who made them could be charged with felonies for eavesdropping. He said that if the television cameras at Wrigley Field were boosted to capture private conversations of baseball fans, those camera operators might be felons, too.

"Are you telling me that in Wrigley Field, they could be committing 38,000 felonies, or 50,000 in Cellular Field?" asked the judge, as he admitted the tapes into evidence. "It was a public park, a public place with millions of video cameras," he said of Chipilly Woods. "Under no circumstances was this a felony."

The judge was unable, however, to immediately rule on another Decker motion last week. The defense attorney wants Chambers to allow him to mount a consent defense, saying that the two youths claiming to be his client's alleged victims actually invited at least some of the abuse they may have received.

Like most of the 15 "powder puff" battery defendants, Mengarelli, now a graduate of Glenbrook North High School, is charged with multiple counts of battery. She is charged with two counts of battery resulting in "bodily harm," for variously pushing, pulling hair, shaking or kicking, according to court documents. She is also charged with two counts of battery of "an insulting and provoking nature," counts that reflect pouring and smearing of various substances upon the youths.

Decker maintained that his client didn't hurt anyone, and that her actions could be explained as consensual acts, since previous "powder puff" events included such abuses, and the then junior class students who participated must have generally known what was coming. He said if some of the activities went beyond what the younger students expected, "too firm of a handshake" or "an over-expressive hug ... could be considered provoking and insulting."

Pernecke countered, "We're talking about someone being kneed in the back, grabbing someone by the hair, and snapping their head back and forth."

Decker backed off the use of the consent defense for the bodily harm battery counts, maintaining that "none of those things are attributable to the defendant," but admitted that she had smeared ketchup and other substances, and that a 2002 "powder puff" videotape will show those actions should have been expected as a traditional part of the annual event. Chambers said he would rule on the consent defense request today in Cook County Second District Criminal Court, 5600 Old Orchard Road, Skokie.

The judge said he would likely also accept into evidence today some school records of the two complainants, which July 15 he ordered that Glenbrook District 225 provide to Decker. Decker wants to use the records to try to impeach the testimony of the complainants, partly by seeing whether they were actually injured enough to miss school or gym class.

District lawyer Camille Grant brought the records to court last week, but said she couldn't give them up, because her firm had failed to notify the students' parents. By law, parents must be informed five days prior to turning over records. Chambers ordered her to inform the parents that day, so that they would have the opportunity to fight the records' use in court today. Attorney Rollin Soskin, who represents both clients in school suspension hearings "and other matters," told the judge he foresaw no protest being made.

Others charged in relation to the May 4 incident are scheduled to appear in court Aug. 15 or Sept. 18, for bench trials or pre-trial motions for bench or jury trials.