University of Rochester students Ani Okeke Ewo, left, and Nicholas Kollias are seen in undated photos distributed by authorities after their abduction.(AP). By this time, Rivera had bailed, leaving his friend who lived in the house to watch over the captives. While Burnham did not respond to repeated requests for comment, Bronson did tell Outside the Lines, "I have been advised to make no comment as it regards to a pending legal proceeding; other than to state that neither K.J. His leg flies out at an odd angle with every step; his gait has a deep dip that wasn't there before. "They start saying that I had been lying to them, and the cards weren't working anymore, and they couldn't get any more money. ", Gigliotti put it more simply: "When you are high and drunk, you really don't care." Power grab: University professor accused of sex harassment of 14 Determined to rehab his mind and his body, Kollias recently ran his first road race since the attack. Their captors had boarded up the windows, making it impossible to tell whether it was light out, but Kollias kept track of time by listening to the football games he could hear through the walls. Kollias is especially outraged by how Dan Kyle, the assistant coach, bailed Smith out of jail. An assistant University of Rochester football coach who lost his job after the kidnapping and torture of two players is suing the school for comments that a university spokeswoman made to Outside the Lines for an investigation that detailed the harrowing story. ", In an email, Kyle's attorney, Brendan Reyes, clarified that "it was Mr. Kyle's belief and understanding that the players had arranged to pay the bail bondsman and that one of the coaches would sign the bond. The customer service agent, unable to see the gun next to Kollias' head, tells him, "Have a great weekend.". The university investigated, promoted Jaeger to full professor over Aslin's objections, cleared Jaeger of any wrongdoing, then allegedly retaliated against Aslin and the complainants when they appealed. There are two students with the same names listed on the University of Rochester Yellowjackets football page. University of Rochester tries to move past sexual harassment scandal University of Rochester football coachScott Greene has announced that the 2017 season will be his final year as the team's head coach. About three hours into the attack, Kollias says they threw him in the shower. The complaint draws on others experiences at the university, specifically that of a former graduate piano student at Eastman School of Music. Public attention has focused most intently on impacts in scientific disciplines. The University of Rochester is looking forward after an independent investigation into sexual harassment claims against a professor. "He was just telling the student body kind of very vaguely of an incident that occurred on school campus property," Kollias says. Hughes and Gigliotti said that, at this point, even Rivera wanted to "ditch" Strickland. They emptied our pockets -- cellphones, wallets and car keys.". Greene was the Section V Player of the Year at Canandaigua in 1991. He wasn't related to any of the men injured in the hammer attack but helped Rivera plan the retaliation. He often finds himself looking over his shoulder in his hometown of Chicago, where he is working in finance. But its early response raisedclaims of retaliation and contributed to departures that threaten to decimate a prestigious science department. Hughes and Gigliotti would later say Rivera told them it was Strickland who ordered the sexual assaults. ", Kollias and his teammate's captors used several household items to torture them, including this iron. The players would be physically, sexually and psychologically tortured for at least 40 hours, according to prosecutors. "There's no doubt the absolute intent was, once they got the money from that account, these kids would have been killed," Ciminelli says. Cantlon, one of the complainants to come forward with Kidd, is Ferrigno's adviser. The Democrat & Chronicle reports Daniel Kyle has filed a lawsuit accusing the university of wrongly claiming he acted alone when he provided bail for Isaiah Smith, a UR student and former. Before airing its investigation, Outside the Lines repeatedly asked school spokeswoman Miller for on-camera interviews with Greene, university president Joel Seligman and campus security staff about their response to the kidnapping and Smith's arrest. Smith was later sentenced to 13 years in prison for orchestrating what police called a "brazen drug robbery," in which his drug suppliers were attacked with a hammer in a successful attempt to steal four pounds of marijuana. It soothes him. He wanted to clean it and his skin underneath. The surveillance cameras show some of the hammer victims walking out of the building using their shirts to stanch the bleeding from their heads. Using Smith's own words and the surveillance video, police collected enough evidence to charge him with burglary, robbery and assault. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. "The entire house had shaken, and there was this huge flash of light," Kollias says. Kollias thinks it was aspirin. In the minutes after the raid, Ciminelli caught a look at Kollias and his teammate. Visit ESPN to view the latest Rochester Yellow Jackets news, scores, stats, standings, rumors, and more Lees has been with the team for 10 years and has served as defensive coordinator since 2012, according to his official university biography. Campus police immediately took the reports seriously. Ready to work out? The University of Rochester fit both perfectly. He followed general manager Bill Polian to Indianapolis, where he was the teams fullback in 1998 and 1999. By the time he was rescued two days later, he lostfour pints of blood -- almost 40 percent in the average human body -- as the kidnappers threatened to chop off his toes and doused him in lighter fluid, threatening toset him on fire. It was "definitely a huge deal.". Instead, the lawsuit contends, "a higher ranking assistant coach" named Jacob Lees told Kyle about the arrest when Kyle arrived at work the following Monday. But then Strickland pulled the mask off, giving the ATM cameras a clear view of his face. Irrera claimed that while pursuing his doctorate in music arts from 2009 to 2014 he rejected unwanted advances from teacherDouglas Humphreys, chairman of the piano department. A few even went out to buy Kollias and his teammate food Sunday afternoon. Smith used it to lead the men into the room. I feel that this is at least one small part that I can do for them.". The incredibly loose structure can be beneficial and allow students to pursue the research they are most interested in, said Wednesday Bushong, a third-year grad student and member of Jaeger's lab. The National Research Council ranked it fourth in the country. ESPN said Kollias was outraged when he learned Kyle had helped Smith, who is now in prison for his actions. College football has qualities beyond being in the public eye that propel it almost to the very top of the scandal scale. Four people were taken into custody. His femur was shattered; he'd felt it explode after they shot him there when he tried to run. They did not find, however, Strickland or Rivera. Athletics and Recreation : University of Rochester The plaintiffs are committing a portion of the settlement to individuals whose careers were negatively affected by the hostile environment described in the lawsuit.. Michigan football continued its momentum on the recruiting trail Tuesday with a commitment from Rochester Adams . Copyright 2023 Inside Higher Ed All rights reserved. Itprovided a collaborative home for seasoned experts and rising stars whose interests danced the line of the two fields. Police Chief Michael Ciminelli, a Rochester native with 12 years of experience with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, says he believes not being able to transfer money on the weekend might have saved Kollias' life. Campus police reached out to Hughes, asking to meet up with her and ask her a few questions. According to the D&C, Kylesaysa higher ranking coach intended to bail Smith out, but he rode along and allegedly ended up handling the bail paperwork while the other looked for a parking space. Robby Klein for ESPN. He didn't know where they'd put the hedge clippers; he was just glad they were gone. When neither Kollias nor his teammate came home that morning, their respective roommates reported them missing. Hayden's work providesalink between basic cognitive and neuroscience research. But the court cleared the way for him to proceed with an allegation of retaliation. Listen to this special OTL for E:60 podcast, where Ryan Smith talks to correspondent, Tisha Thompson, and producer, Andy Lockett about their harrowing story from 22 Harvest Street. Rochester Football (@UofRFootball) / Twitter Now we have to shut it all down and build it up somewhere else.". "Things happen, like drunk driving," he explains. Football Statistics - University of Rochester Athletics But the university did not move the students or, Kollias says, explain to them exactly what had happened in their apartment. In his first year at Rochester, the team went 5-4 and Smith made 80 tackles, most on the team. ", Another former Rochester player tells Outside the Lines that he bought marijuana from Smith several times. Although all of their transactions went "smoothly" because of their football connection, the player says Smith developed a reputation for ripping other students off. The football season was over, and Smith was back on campus by the time classes resumed. Research papers are currency in academia. Head Coach Men's & Women's Swimming and Diving in Chicago, IL - NCAA The player declined requests for interviews and, as a crime victim, requested that he remain anonymous. Investigators are looking into why Kollias and Ewo were targeted. Humphreys allegedly retaliated, failing him on back-to-back recitals just months beforehe won the America Protg International Competition and performed at Carnegie Hall for the second time. Smith had already left school soon after his arrest, though the university will not say whether he withdrew or was expelled. "Right after this happened, I was very scared," said Handsman, one of Jaeger's students this year. The cameras showed Smith meeting up with three men near the apartment building. Richard Aslin, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences who helped create theBrain and Cognitive Sciencesdepartment, first raised a red flag in 2016. The two who wrote a letter to the university Board of Trustees have been past department chairpersons who have worked a total of 57 years for the University of Rochester. Smith didn't know much. He wasn't going to get kicked off the team.". In her testimony, Gigliotti said that she and Hughes were in the front seat, Strickland in the back. Stepping over glass shattered in the explosion, SWAT members combed 22 Harvest, finding the plastic masks, the impromptu household items used during the bathroom attack and the bleach used to clean Kollias' blood. Trustees appointed a special committee of its members Sept. 19 and hired special investigator Mary Jo White, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and past chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. This one is really in a class by itself in terms of the level of physical and psychological torture. When he rolled down the car window to use Kollias' card, Strickland was wearing the same black and white skull mask he wore in the cellphone video. Football - University of Rochester Athletics The official Football page for the University of Rochester Yellowjackets The official Football page for the University of Rochester Yellowjackets The official Football page for the University of Rochester Yellowjackets Skip To Main Content Pause All Rotators Three of the four men in the cellphone video recording of the torture, including Elliot Rivera, also pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 35 years in prison. Kollias wanted to take off his ACL brace, the one he'd been wearing after knee surgery for a recent football injury. The harassment tends to be not just verbal but physical, and offenders often are serial harassers, according to the survey in which more than 150,000 students responded. There's a tendency to question the motives of the victims instead of the validity of the accusations," Hastings said. ET on Sunday on ESPN. ", The lights went out, and Kollias says he sprinted for the door. I'm not wearing a T-shirt, and all these casings are extremely hot, and we're just flailing and they're yelling at us to stay still. For the Outside the Lines story in June, Miller told ESPN in a written statement that Kyle acted alone when he bailed out Smith. On Thursday, the special committee announced it would add a faculty and graduate student membersand that the investigative findings report would be made public, unedited, the same day it is received. That same day, Kollias says the masked men put a gun to his head and demanded he call his bank. Prosecutors say this is Rivera. He had previously lived for a brief time in the house, but now it was inhabited by a few of his friends. That is absolutely not true. All Rights Reserved. "The is a collective sense of relief tonight, that all of us feel. The lawsuit further claims, "Lees coordinated with Bronson and Burnham to sign Smith's bond once Bronson and Burnham raised the money.". It was small money, but he was one of the best football players on the team, and he could definitely be intimidating. 2022 Football Schedule - University of Rochester Athletics In the science, technology, engineering and math fieldsparticularly, students look at individual faculty and what research they are doing. They found Kollias and his teammate in the bedroom, untied but badly injured. The official 2022 Football schedule for the University of Rochester Yellowjackets University of Rochester football player kidnapped, tortured for 40 hours "And theres nobody else in the department who does what he does." In the video, Rivera is holding a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle and standing over Kollias' teammate lying facedown in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. "I just wanted to survive. Kollias and Ewo were sexually assaulted, beaten,terrorizedand threatened over 40 hours; one was also shot twicewith a .22 caliber rifle. Rochester hasnt won more than five games in a season the past nine years and is 2-3 this season. That vulnerability arises because doctoral candidates, particularly those in scientific fields, spend years working in close proximity and under the supervision of one primary faculty member,according to a study published in May in the Journal of Legal Education titled "Mapping the Title IX Iceberg: Sexual Harassment (Mostly) in Graduate School by College Faculty., "You're working with a professor that really determines everything about your graduate career," said Stephen Ferrigno, a fourth-year grad student in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department at the University of Rochester. He played college ball at Michigan State, earning team MVP twice, before he was selected in the sixth round of the 1996 NFL Draft by Carolina. Our labs were thriving. "That's when they started feeding us and giving us food and water" and even medicine. During Lydell Strickland's trial in December 2016, prosecutors described him as the "ringleader" and "mastermind" of the plot. "He had the size; he had the speed; and he just changed the game for our team," Kollias says. Follow Lauren Peace and Brian Sharp on Twitter:@LaurenMPeace and@SharpRoc. The team has lost just two games this season, to the University of Chicago by 3 points and Washington University by 5 points. Former University of Rochester assistant coach Dan Kyle suing - ESPN There was so much. The attackers recorded some of their assault on a cellphone. "And it is different in kind than any of us have faced.". In the case at the University of Rochester,Kidd said it took her nearly a decadeuntil she was a tenured faculty member with the support of colleagues to be in a positionwhere she felt safe enough to come forward. Lawmakers and higher ed leaders are facing off over the proposed state budget. Investigators said at a news conference the pair were kidnapped and held against their will. Canale described Jaeger's demeanor on that first day as "a little forward," alludingto his use ofcrude comments and foul language. Smith also declined to be interviewed; his attorney says his client is "not a drug dealer. Jaeger sent the Rochester Democrat and Chronicleemail Friday afternoon in response to several inquiries: University of Rochester officials found the initial harassment claims without merit. "I just remember the first thing that I smelled was urine and feces, and it was totally disgusting," Kollias says. Rochester Police Department. Trieu: Michigan football lands Rochester Adams tight end Brady Prieskorn On Sunday morning, the masked men cranked up the music before entering the room where Kollias was being held. At Smith's sentencing hearing, Judge Melchor E. Castro told the former linebacker, "I suppose you couldn't realize what events you set up when you did this." Both Hughes and Gigliotti said Strickland took Rivera's plan for revenge beyond their expectations. (); : ET Sunday on ESPN.Rochester Police Department, When Nicholas Kollias arrived on campus three years earlier, in 2012, he had two great passions: piano and football. I regret that the regular order of our Faculty Senate appears to have been violated by the public release of these minutes.". I'll just call back on Monday." The lawsuit states Lees then directed Kyle "to go in and sign Smith's bond. Faculty and students with backgrounds not only in cognitive science and psychologybut also neuroscience were recruited. Ciminelli says Smith then contacted his former drug suppliers and "offered them $15,000 to release" his teammates. He also ordered anyone related to either crime to be pulled in for questioning, including Smith, Hughes and Gigliotti. Three of the seven complainants have left, and four others are considering following suit. June 29:Sexual harassment scandal shakes influential venture capital world June 13:Uber board member makes sexist remark during meeting on sexism. ", Faculty Senate meetings are closed to the public. Copyright 2023 WLS-TV. After meeting with Burnham and Bronson, Kyle "went to the jail records office to wait for Smith's release," where he "texted Lees discussing the long wait time." 1 talking about this. Watch E:60's full-length feature on former University of Rochester defensive end Niko Kollias at 9 a.m. But faculty at other institutions have been reaching outand publicly voicing support for the affected students, Bushong said. "My life was more important than any amount of money," Kollias now says. Scandal: Paying Tribute - JSTOR "I noticed that the neighborhood started getting kind of bad," he says. But prosecutors say the campus officers did not immediately connect Smith's drug heist to the missing men. No party to the settlement admitted liability or fault. It said it has taken a number of steps to address the issues the case brought to light, including establishing an Office of Equity and Inclusion and strengthening and clarifying relevant policies, procedures and training. What No. Two UR football players were kidnapped and tortured in a case of mistaken identity. FINAL! If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Ex-football coach sues University of Rochester over ESPN special on A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit alleging the University of Wisconsin System failed to protect women from the husband of a UW-Whitewater chancellor who was found to have sexually harassed . Once a college athlete, he now struggles to finish 3.5 miles. In the room during that faculty meeting were at least two of Jaeger's alleged victims, CelesteKidd and Jessica Cantlon. ); : ABC7 New York 24/7 Eyewitness News Stream. "If as a victim you're going to be victimized by the public, why would you?" "I had heard that he was a professor known for sleeping with grad students through friends in the department, but nothing to the same extent of what's come out since.". Isaiah Smith excelled on the football field -- but also found himself in legal trouble. Brady Prieskorn, 4-star TE from Rochester Adams, picks Michigan football for 2024. At one point, Seligman addressed them directly. "That's really what he took pride in more than his exceptional athletics, which was shocking to me. university President Joel Seligman announced he will resign next month so that a new leader can focus on healing the campus. The letter was in response to the Jaeger case but not limited to it, said the society's executive director, Alyson Reed. "Decisions were made without regard for science," Kidd said. University leaders believe keeping that together is important.