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BY IVAN BOOTHE

In print | Published January 27, 2005

The college plans to file charges this week against a Philadelphia man they believe is the individual who made early-morning calls to more than three dozen female students last semester. Working with the borough police and the Delaware County district attorney’s office, the college will charge the man, whose identity has not been released, with harassment. A maximum sentence of 90 days imprisonment and a $300 fine plus court costs could be imposed.

In an e-mail sent to students who had received the calls and obtained by The Phoenix, Director of Public Safety Owen Redgrave said the man had “provided a written statement admitting he made calls to various Swarthmore College phone numbers allegedly on the pretext of finding a female student he had met in a Philadelphia night club.”

If the man pleads guilty, about which Redgrave said he was “optimistic” due to the written statement, there would not be a hearing and students would not be required to testify. The case could be resolved in a few days or it could take several months, depending on how the man pleads and whether appeals are initiated after the fact. Students may still be called to testify if the charges are contested.

The process for identifying the individual took some time, according to Redgrave, because at first the phone calls were not criminal in nature. “Initially the calls didn’t qualify as a crime,” he said.

“I believe the district attorney’s office eventually approved taking on this case primarily because of the sizable number of similar calls,” Redgrave said in an e-mail. There were ongoing communications, according to Redgrave, between ITS, the legal department of the college’s telephone carrier, the borough police department and the district attorney’s office during the fall semester.

Joanna Taylor ‘05, one of the first recipients and who ultimately received several calls, said she thought Public Safety could have communicated their ongoing work more effectively. "I felt as though they were unclear about what exactly they were doing throughout the semester, making it seem like they weren’t really doing anything at all," she said. “The e-mail that was sent out regarding their procedures was pretty useless and made them seem helpless.”

A reserved-students e-mail sent out by Public Safety on Oct. 8 said that the college could “attempt to influence” the phone company’s decision on pursuing the investigation, but that ultimately it was out of their control.

In cooperation with the borough police, Public Safety executed a search warrant early in January after the measure was approved by the district court. Redgrave said attempts had been made to learn the caller’s identity through ITS and phone logs before a warrant was sought.

The decision to charge the individual with harassment was made in consultation with the Dean’s Office, Vice President Larry Schall ’75 and the borough police after consulting with the district attorney and district court. The e-mail to recipients of the phone calls offered to consider their input before charges were filed.

In addition, the college will formally ban the individual from the college premises and, according to the Public Safety e-mail, “make a strong statement to him regarding the (criminal) consequences of any future telephone calls to Swarthmore students.”

Tara Miller ’07, who received a call just after 4 a.m. on Sept. 16, said she had reported the call but did not receive a copy of the e-mail from Public Safety. In fact, she said, “Public Safety never called me back” after she reported the call.

“Every time I did call in to report a new incident,” Taylor said, “it seemed like they were a little annoyed that I bothered.”

Redgrave said that “there were a few cases that did not fit the mold,” but that no one was intentionally excluded. He asked that students who had not been kept informed contact him.

Recipients of the calls seemed content with the charges being levied against the suspect. Katharine Merow ‘06, who received two calls, said they “seem fitting” given the nature of the events. Taylor said the experience was "creepy, but it’s not as though he actually came to campus."

Redgrave said as a result of the calls, Public Safety and ITS have “streamlined the process for searching the college’s phone records.” Whereas students who received calls early last semester were sent through ITS, they now “need only notify Public Safety.” Reporting incidents was important in order to reach the threshold of qualifying as “harassing” phone calls, in particular because the method used by most telephone customers to “earmark” a suspicious call for a phone company, the key combination *57, is not available on the college network. Taylor said she thought the college should have a similar system in order to “track numbers more easily.”

Mark Dumic, ITS manager of networking and systems, estimated last fall that a new system would not be in place until at least 2006. Redgrave said the college is “optimistic” that the new system “will be of significant help in the future.”

Miller expressed discontent that the student body was not informed earlier on last semester that a large number of harassing phone calls were occurring. “If something like that were to happen again, they should inform everyone,” she said. "I thought I was the only one and that [the caller] was just targeting me.

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