Some charges dismissed, others reduced against Chestnut Ridge Middle School assistant principal accused of failing to report

Apr. 18—BEDFORD, Pa. — Magisterial District Judge Wendy Mellot dismissed two of the more serious charges against Chestnut Ridge Middle School Assistant Principal Patrick Isgan Wednesday, and reduced counts in other allegations.

The reduction of charges involving Isgan — accused of failure to handle student-on-student sexual misconduct allegations — occurred at Bedford County Central Court after hours of testimony and legal arguments during Igsan's preliminary hearing.

Mellot, a Fulton County judge, presided over the hearing because all Bedford County judges recused themselves from the case.

Bedford County authorities charged Isgan in March with failure to report, a third-degree felony, and continuing failure to report child abuse, a second-degree felony, for his handling of allegations that a 12-year-old boy inappropriately touched an 8-year-old girl on a Nov. 2 school bus ride after school.

Mellot dismissed both of those charges Wednesday.

Isgan also had been charged with two counts each of endangering the welfare of children, a felony, and endangering the welfare of children by preventing or interfering with making a report, a misdemeanor. Those charges were reduced to one count each.

Fifty-one misdemeanor charges for endangering the welfare of students were bound over for trial. Those 51 charges reflect the number of students who regularly ride the school bus where the accused boy allegedly moved around from seat to seat.

The Bedford County District Attorney's office brought witnesses, including Pennsylvania State Trooper Nathan Smith, of the Bedford barracks, who reviewed Nov. 2 video footage from the bus.

Two employees of the bus company who initially provided the video footage and reportedly relayed the girl's accusations to Isgan and Chestnut Ridge Principal Greg Lazor also testified.

After cross-examination of the prosecution's witnesses, Isgan's attorney, Thomas Dickey, argued for dismissing the charges.

Dickey pressed Smith, the arresting officer, on the contents of the video footage, which showed the accused boy sitting next to the alleged victim.

"Did you see a crime in the footage?" Dickey asked.

The trooper said he saw the accused boy sitting next to the girl, but the seat blocked the angle of the camera and he could not determine what was happening.

"Is it a crime to sit next to someone?" Dickey said. "Did you see a crime?"

"No," Smith said.

Although Dickey asked Mellot to dismiss the charges entirely, he said he was pleased that two of the most serious charges were dismissed.

"We are chipping away at the mountain," Dickey said after the hearing.

Looking ahead to a trial, Dickey said: "The rest of the mountain will crumble."

"We are pleased the judge dismissed most of the more serious charges, but we felt she should have dismissed all of them," he said. "You have to have reasonable cause to report abuse to ChildLine, and there were three mandated reporters — the bus driver, the bus dispatcher and Middle School Principal Greg Lazor — and none filed. And they shouldn't have filed.

"There was no basis."

Although the video footage of the accused boy seated with the initial alleged victim did not show actions that could be considered criminal, Smith testified, the audio from the footage could be heard clearly when the girl, one of the last students on the bus, showed the bus driver how the boy had touched her.

She demonstrated to the driver by rubbing her leg and saying "he touched me" between her legs, Smith said.

Bedford County District Attorney Ashlan Clark planned to show the footage in the courtroom, but Dickey's objection regarding the authentication of the footage was sustained by Mellot.

Clark argued for all the charges to stand, saying the girl's exchange with the driver must be considered.

Isgan said he interviewed the accused boy and the alleged victim Nov. 3. The girl said the boy "touched her and she did not like it," according to testimony of Smith — who reviewed Isgan's records of the incident.

The boy told Isgan he was tickling the girl.

Lazor testified that Isgan, in his role as assistant principal, is responsible for meting out disciplinary action. He said Isgan reviewed the footage.

Isgan also interviewed three older students on the bus, all of whom said they saw nothing happen on the bus that would constitute sexual behavior.

Isgan removed the boy from the bus for a day as a disciplinary measure.

More allegations involving other students surfaced in February. Isgan investigated the allegations and filed ChildLine reports for six students including the girl who made the Nov. 2 report.

All of the children were ages 6 to 8.

After Isgan filed those reports in February, state police met with Isgan and Lazor, Smith testified.

After the February allegations involving the other children surfaced, Isgan reviewed the same Nov. 2 bus ride footage again but focused on the accused boy's interactions with another child.

Smith said the footage showed the boy piling three backpacks over the lap of a younger student and sticking his hand under the backpacks.

The trooper testified the accused boy then got on the floor of the bus and stuck his head under the packs near the younger child's body.

Dickey pointed out that Isgan reported the incidents to ChildLine, which led to involvement by Children and Youth Services and state police, promptly after viewing the footage in light of new allegations that came to him in February.

Dickey said all of the charges should be dropped because they stem from the initial Nov. 2 allegations involving the 8-year-old girl.

Citing the testimony of the other mandated reporters — the bus driver, bus dispatcher and Lazor — as well as testimony from Smith, Dickey argued that it was clear there was no reasonable cause to report to ChildLine with the information Isgan was given in November.

And when allegations from other students came in February, Dickey said, Isgan again reviewed the footage for the accused boy's interactions with other students, saw what constituted reasonable causes and reported it.