More than a dozen former Northwestern football players have now joined lawsuits against the university following allegations of hazing, sexual abuse, and discrimination across the athletic department.
So far, one civil suit against Northwestern leadership and now-fired football Coach Pat Fitzgerald has been filed in Cook County. Another team of lawyers, including nationally known trial lawyer Ben Crump, have announced they'll be filing their civil suit soon.
According to Northwestern's executive summary of its investigation, some of the abuse may have taken place at Camp Kenosha, the football team's annual summer training program at UW-Parkside in Kenosha.
"One part of the summary that stood out, again, very curious as to what the details are, is that the camp in Kenosha is permanently ended. And so it must be pretty bad in terms of their own internal investigation in addition to what we know from it," said Patrick Salvi II, of Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard.
TMJ4 News asked criminal defense attorney Patrick Cafferty, of Racine: Could a former player or team staff member ever be criminally charged in Wisconsin?
"So, the civil complaint alleges various things including hazing, disorderly conduct, sexual assault, battery. Theoretically, those things can be prosecuted criminally," said Cafferty.
He said ultimately it's up to the Kenosha County District Attorney.
A spokesperson for the county said nothing has been referred to the DA, and the DA has nothing to say about the allegations.
Cafferty said the statute of limitations could also hamper criminal charges. In Wisconsin, he said, it's three years for a misdemeanor and six years for a felony.
"Some of this is beyond the statute of limitations in the criminal realm. If I had to guess, there probably wouldn't be a criminal prosecution, at least in Wisconsin," said Cafferty.
Through their own work, the attorneys behind the lawsuits have said they expect to find out much more than what Northwestern revealed in its own independent investigation.
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