Information sheds light on IU student’s $28 million lawsuit

Police reports and e-mail conversations between IU senior Scott Gray, the IU Student Ethics Committee and IU Dean of Students Dick McKaig shed more light onto the reason Gray is suing six former IU students and one current student for an alleged racially motivated attacks.\nGray alleges that the men assaulted him and made anti-Semitic comments toward him in February 2006. It wasn’t until a second altercation in May 2006 with the defendants that Gray decided to take action. The e-mails with McKaig and the ethics committee revealed that defendant Brian Pennington was found guilty of an ethics violation at IU. Gray was also accused of an ethics violation, but that was later dismissed.\nIn May 2006, Gray was arrested on preliminary charges of battery after he got into the second altercation with former students Pennington, Ross Parker, Patrick Vallely, James Teets, Dane Pinter and Norm McOlsen III. Gray said the allegations were falsely reported. \nThe second altercation occurred at Kilroy’s Bar and Grill on Kirkwood Avenue in late May, according to the police report. Bloomington Police Department Officer Scott Myers was dispatched to Kilroy’s in response to reports of a man, Parker, being struck in the head with a beer bottle.\nWhen Myers arrived, he found Parker bleeding from the left side of his head. Parker’s T-shirt was blood-soaked, according to the police report. Gray fled the scene and could not be located that night, police said.\nPennington said in his witness statement that there were prior circumstances involving himself and Gray, including Pennington and his friends being accused of not liking the Jewish community. Pennington said in his statement the allegation that he and the other defendants made anti-Semitic remarks to Gray were not true because he has friends who are Jewish.\nIn Parker’s witness statement, he alleges that he did not know who hit him in the head with a beer bottle. He said after he fell to the ground, Gray punched him several times.\nPennington described Gray as the suspect, and added that Gray “definitely looks like he is Jewish.” Pennington also wrote in his statement that “Gray is always trying to start fights with (Pennington’s) friends and then turning the argument into a lawsuit.”\nGray alleges that he never hit Parker in the head with the beer bottle, instead claiming defendant Vallely did. Vallely was treated for lacerations to his thumb that night, according to the police reports.\nThe surveillance tape from Kilroy’s shows one man hitting another with a beer bottle, but it is impossible to tell who struck Parker.\nFive days after the altercation at Kilroy’s, Parker e-mailed McKaig to report an ethics violation against Gray. Parker attached a copy of his signed police statement in the e-mail.\nMcKaig e-mailed Parker back and told him he forwarded his request to the Office of Student Ethics and Anti-Harassment Programs. McKaig told Parker he had the option of filing judicial charges against Gray.\nIn July, Gray received a notification from Timothy Bagwell, a judicial officer, informing Gray he had committed an ethics violation.\nIn August, Gray filed a counter-ethics violation against all of the defendants for hate crimes, sexual and racial harassment, anti-Semitic attacks and slurs and violent assault. In an e-mail addressed to McKaig and Bagwell, Gray said he was tired of being a victim and wanted to ensure harassment against him would stop.\nDuring the student trial, the ethics committee found Pennington guilty of an ethics violation. He was suspended for one full academic year, according to the lawsuit. Pennington was the only one of the defendants found guilty by the ethics committee because he was the only one still enrolled at IU.\nNow, Gray is suing Pennington and six others for more than $4 million each. According to the lawsuit, Gray filed for two counts of assault, battery and unlawful restraint, intentional infliction of emotional distress and punitive damages against each of the defendants.\nAccording to the lawsuit, McKaig said Pennington, Parker and Teets’ membership in their fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega, was deactivated. Wynn Smiley, the chief executive officer of the ATO National Fraternity, did not return phone calls by press time. McKaig did not return repeated calls and e-mails by press time.\nBut Parker’s attorney, Greg Moss, said that he can confirm that Parker has not been deactivated from ATO. Moss would not comment further about any documentation he might have regarding the “deactivation.”\n“We have plenty of information to suggest that most of these allegations are false,” Moss said.