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AEPi-FlaSU Fraternity president faces charges, lawsuit
Mon, Sep. 26, 2005
(I guess this is really AEPi)
1 night, 1 death, 2 stories
Fraternity president faces charges, lawsuit
By Tony Bridges
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER
An accusation of perjury against a Florida State University fraternity president - arrested last month - may come down to a simple case of he said/she said.
At issue is whether Richard Koblick gave alcohol to an underage woman when she visited him at the Alpha Epsilon Phi house earlier this year.
Koblick swears he didn't. The woman, Hadas Maimon, then 20, insists he did.
Tallahassee police apparently believe her - they've charged Kolbrick with supplying Maimon with drinks and then lying to them about it.
"I did not do anything wrong," Koblick said last week. "Everything is going to work out the way it should."
Normally, a little drinking between friends - of age or not - at a frat house might not get much attention. But this case involves a death.
Fraternity member Michael Schwartz died April 1 when he drove his car into a tree after a night of drinking at a Tallahassee bar.
He wasn't alone. Maimon was found in the passenger seat, drunk and severely injured in the crash.
She told cops later that she'd been drinking at the fraternity house - not the bar - and couldn't remember how she ended up in the car with Schwartz.
She's since filed a lawsuit against his family and Floyd's Music Store, the bar where he'd allegedly been drinking.
Neither Maimon nor Floyd's owner, Charles Jacquet, returned calls seeking comment.
The night in question
The story police put together is this:
Maimon stopped by the fraternity to visit Koblick about 10:30 p.m. March 31.
They were together when Schwartz announced he was going to Floyd's and asked whether she wanted to go with him. She declined.
Schwartz, who was 20, returned a few hours later, apparently very drunk.
Koblick went to bed, leaving Schwartz and Maimon together.
No one saw them leave, but about 2 a.m., Schwartz slammed his Mitsubishi into a tree near the corner of Collier and West St. Augustine streets, only blocks from the fraternity.
The impact was so tremendous that the transmission broke free and landed more than four feet in front of the car, according to Tallahassee Police Department investigators.
Schwartz wasn't wearing his seat belt and died at the scene. Tests later showed he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.23 - nearly three times the limit considered too drunk to drive. On his wrist was a band that Floyd's gives to patrons who are old enough to buy liquor. The legal drinking age in Florida is 21.
Maimon's seat belt was buckled. The crash left her with a punctured lung and multiple fractures in her legs, among other injuries. She had to be cut from the car.
Her blood alcohol tested at 0.11, according to police reports.
Asking questions
A doorman at Floyd's admitted to investigators that he hadn't asked Schwartz for ID that night.
He said he'd seen it so many times before - Schwartz was a regular - that he didn't think he needed to.
Prosecutors declined to file criminal charges related to the death.
But cops still had the conflicting statements about drinking at the frat house.
State alcohol agents interviewed Maimon at her South Florida home in June. She was accompanied by her mother and an investigator from a law firm.
Turned out she'd already filed her lawsuit.
Maimon told the investigators that Koblick had served her whiskey while they played a drinking game the night of the crash. She couldn't remember anything from the hours leading up to the crash, but she was sure she hadn't gone to Floyd's.
Koblick and other fraternity members already had said there was no alcohol in the house that night.
The booze in Maimon's system had to come from somewhere. Police settled on Koblick, charging him with perjury.
What's next?
So far, FSU has not taken any action against the fraternity.
University spokesman Barry Ray said the dean of students was waiting to receive the police report before making a decision.
Meanwhile, Maimon's suit is slowly moving through the system. And Koblick's attorney said he's confident he has enough evidence from witnesses to clear his client.
Those findings will go to prosecutors in hopes they will "do the right thing," attorney Don Pumphrey said.
"I don't believe the charges will stand," he said.
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