Sofield may sue U. over police actions in arrest

After College freshman Bill Sofield's acquittal on disorderly conduct and resisting arrest charges, his family is now mulling an option that has always been on the backburner -- a civil suit against the University alleging that police were unnecessarily brutal when they arrested him. On October 30, Sofield, 18, his older brother Richard and their friend Warnell "Yode" Owens were arrested for disorderly conduct outside the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house on Locust Walk. Owens allegedly assaulted several police officers before he was subdued forcibly, and Bill Sofield was charged with resisting arrest. In the course of the arrest, according to FIJI brothers who witnessed the incident, police unnecessarily beat Bill Sofield after he fled into the fraternity house. The Sofields never filed a formal complaint. But the Division of Public Safety has investigated those allegations. The 1 1/2-month probe concluded that the 15-20 officers who entered the FIJI house to arrest Sofield did not act improperly, because force was necessary in order to handcuff Sofield. On Wednesday, however, Court of Common Pleas Judge James Deleon acquitted Sofield on charges that he resisted arrest, reasoning that what police called "resisting arrest" -- primarily kicking and flailing his arms around -- did not amount to a criminal charge. Because the investigation's rejection of the police brutality allegation was based on the premise that Sofield resisted arrest, the Sofields have acknowledged that they may "take things further" now that Sofield was found not guilty of the charge. In November, when the FIJI eyewitnesses first came forth with their allegations, a source close to the Sofield family said while they would not rule out anything, their first priority was to "take care of the criminal charges" and they would not make any formal complaints until then. Now, with the charges cleared, a civil suit is a likely possibility. The Sofields' lawyer, Walter Phillips, has already written a letter to the University blasting the findings of the investigation. "I pointed out what I thought were major flaws and deficiencies in that investigation," Phillips said yesterday. "The campus police just completely rejected what the [FIJI brothers] had to say." But yesterday, Deleon said that while he thought Bill Sofield "was not truly the culprit," a civil case could hurt the family because of the actions of Richard Sofield. "If anyone had a problem, it was [Bill's] brother," Deleon said. "He was just drunk? and if his father wants to keep on pressing this, he's got to look at what his older son did." Unlike his two companions, Richard Sofield did not leave the scene and allowed University Police Officer Jeff Dougherty to handcuff him and arrest him. But Dougherty testified that Sofield was also belligerent and used his status as an assistant U.S. attorney to taunt the officer. Although Sofield denied making such remarks, two FIJI brothers testified that he was "visibly intoxicated" and the fact that he supplied his underage brother with a great deal of alcohol during the evening could potentially mar his career if it is further publicized. Little information about the incident came out during Bill Sofield's non-jury criminal trial, which lasted only 3 1/2 hours. "You know, he's an attorney and he took his younger sibling around with him and they were drinking at every place, margaritas and Jagermeister, and then they went back to the [FIJI] house and had 40s," said Deleon. "That's not going to look good." Managing Director of Public Safety Tom Seamon said that even though Deleon acquitted Sofield, he still believed the freshman had resisted arrest and that the charges were proper. "The district attorney agreed with us," Seamon said in reference to a preliminary hearing where Sofield's charges were upheld. "We were disappointed with the ruling, but I still don't believe that changes the facts of anything that happened that night," Seamon said.

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