11 Syracuse high schoolers face charges over an alleged team hazing. Here's what we know about the possible punishment

CNN

01-05-2025

The legal punishments for each of the 11 Syracuse high school students who surrendered for their alleged involvement in the extreme hazing of five younger lacrosse players could vary, legal experts say.
The Westhill High School student athletes – who are not being identified due to their age – are accused of staging an armed abduction of younger members of the school's lacrosse team last week in what 'went way beyond hazing,' Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick has said.
Most of the suspects are minors, but at least one is over the age of 18, Onondaga County First Chief Assistant District Attorney Joseph Coolican told CNN Wednesday.
The suspects face misdemeanor charges of unlawful imprisonment, Fitzpatrick said. The students turned themselves in within a day after the district attorney on Tuesday raised the prospect of them facing the more serious charge of felony kidnapping if they didn't do so within 48 hours.
But their legal outcomes will all depend on each person's age and culpability, experts said.
Under New York state law, more leniency is given in the criminal justice system for those aged 19 and under to be eligible for Youthful Offender Status, which seals their criminal record and gives greater discretion to the punishment they face.
The Youthful Offender Status is 'designed to give people aged 16 but younger than 19 sort of a second chance to straighten out their lives,' said David Shapiro, lecturer at the City University of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
'It's recognition of the state of mind and the comparative development as a person moves from a child to an adult,' Shapiro said. In any case, the 'fairly young age of the offenders would be considered at sentencing,' he added.
The non-juvenile students will be arraigned, while the juveniles will proceed to family court, the district attorney said. There are separate legal tracks that could determine the punishment for each suspect, according to CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson.
In New York, the cases of those under 16 go straight to family court, where the consequences are focused on rehabilitation and diversion initiatives such as community service or educational programs, Jackson said.
The judge presiding over the case could decide to send an 18-year-old to the Youth Part of the Supreme Court, according to Jackson, where the suspect would be considered a juvenile delinquent and thus treated more gingerly than an adult in their early 20s. This means they don't face prison time and can receive the same services and programs as a juvenile delinquent, Jackson added.
However, there are caveats to obtaining the Youthful Offender Status, as the judge has to look at the nature of their offense, whether they have prior felony convictions or are accused of other violent crimes, which may make them ineligible for that treatment.
'The whole essence of this in New York is you're examining there's a distinction when you're young between rehabilitation and punishment,' Jackson said.
For the suspects over the age of 18, Jackson said it's likely defense lawyers will ask for their clients to be given Youth Offender Status 'because it's the more favorable treatment in terms of the sealing of their record and the punishment' as opposed to 'getting slammed as an adult.'
The incident, which has stunned the community, began last Thursday when some of the suspects tricked the younger lacrosse players after a game into believing they were going to McDonald's, District Attorney Fitzpatrick said Tuesday.
The driver of the vehicle claimed he was lost in a remote part of the southern county in a wooded area when 'accomplices' – dressed in black and wielding what appeared to be at least one handgun and at least one knife – jumped out and pretended to be kidnappers, Fitzpatrick said.
While some of the victims managed to escape, one of the students couldn't flee, he said. The group put a pillowcase over that teen's head, tied him up and threw him in the trunk of a car before ditching him in another wooded part of the county, Fitzpatrick said.
Before he was eventually returned home, there was a period of time when the younger player thought he was 'going to be abandoned in the middle of nowhere,' the district attorney said.
Fitzpatrick said he had seen a videotape of what happened which captured reactions from some of the suspects. 'You can hear that some of the individuals found it amusing.'
'It is not a rite of passage. It is not a trivial matter. I don't know how long this young man will be affected by what happened to him,' Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick did not say whether the apparent gun used was real or fake but asserted: 'We're not going to charge anybody with possession of a weapon.'
Westhill Central School District said the rest of the varsity boys' lacrosse season has been canceled. Someone familiar with the reasoning behind the decision told CNN there were concerns that teams would not want to play against Westhill.
Westhill School Superintendent Stephen Dunham told CNN in a statement Wednesday that it would not provide further comment about the incident because the investigation is ongoing.
However, he wrote: 'What I can share, as Superintendent, is that any behavior that endangers the physical safety, mental health, or well-being of our students will always be addressed promptly and in accordance with our Code of Conduct.'
Dunham said the school district remains 'committed to addressing serious issues directly and thoughtfully, and we will make the decisions necessary to uphold the values of our school community.'
There are varied levels of culpability depending on the facts and the seriousness of the case, along with the age of those involved, according to Shapiro, the John Jay College lecturer.
While the district attorney can make a formal request to keep a case in family court or move it to the Supreme Court's Youth Part, ultimately it's the judge's call, according to the law, Shapiro said.
'Once you put a person in the criminal justice system as a convict or delinquent, there's a great probability that you've lost that person for the rest of his or her life,' Shapiro said. 'The law recognizes that, and they allow judicial discretion to say: 'Some individuals still possess hope. Some individuals have not committed crimes so egregious that we cannot sort of give them leniency.''
The 11 student athletes will be exposed to a legal process that addresses the allegations of law violations with sensitivity to their ages, maturity levels, the seriousness of the offense and the underlying assumption the victims were not seriously harmed, Shapiro said.
It's not clear how the case will play out in court, and ultimately the punishment 'has to be consistent with, factually, the charges against you,' according to Jackson, a CNN legal analyst.
CNN's Holly Yan contributed to this report.