Last month, while attending UCLA summer school, former Los Alamitos High School football player Shaquille Richardson was among three incoming UCLA freshman football players arrested on suspicion of felony theft. About a week later and before any decision about filing charges was made by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, all three were kicked out of UCLA and dismissed from the team.
This week, the Los Angeles DA’s Office decided not to move forward with prosecuting the case. “We thought there was insufficient evidence to support felony charges,” Jane Robison, Press Secretary for the LADA’s Office, told www.OC180NEWS.com. “So, we referred it to the City Attorney’s Office for misdemeanor consideration.” She would not elaborate on the basis for that decision, other than to say the evidence was insufficient.
As of yesterday, the City Attorney’s Office for Los Angeles had not yet received the case from the LADA. Thus, continuation of the case as a misdemeanor is an open issue. However, neither the LADA’s decision to reject felony prosecution, nor the prospective decision of the City Attorney on potential misdemeanor charges, will affect the decisions of UCLA.
When the players were arrested last month, UCLA officials issued a statement which said “The three young men know they made a terrible mistake,” head football coach Rick Neuheisel said in a statement. “We expect our players to behave a certain way and there are consequences when they don’t.”
Even though the players have not entered a plea in court, have not been convicted of a crime, the felony charges for which they were arrested were dropped for insufficient evidence, and at most, they might be charged with a misdemeanor, UCLA will not reconsider the decision to kick them off the team and out of the school.
“The decision we made was the best decision for our program, based on the information available to us,” university spokesperson Marc Dellins told www.OC180NEWS.com. “If they {the three players} meet the standards Coach Neuheisel has set for them, they would be reconsidered for January.”
We asked Dellins if the LA City Attorney declines to prosecute the misdemeanor charges, would the university’s decision be reconsidered. He said “I don’t believe it will at this point.”
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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