Pitcher John O'Reilly permanently injured another student in an October 2014 assault, a lawsuit says
A former student manager for the Rutgers University baseball team has filed suit against a top pitcher on the squad, claiming the player attacked him in a drunken rage in a dormitory hallway, causing permanent injuries to his neck.
The former manager, Albert DeSanto, claims in the lawsuit that John O'Reilly, a 6-foot, 5-inch sophomore, first threatened to hit him with a wall shelf, then wrapped his arms around DeSanto's neck from behind and yanked upward, lifting the 5-foot-6 student off the ground.
The early morning encounter -- which took place in October 2014, when O'Reilly was a first-semester freshman -- left DeSanto so severely injured he required surgery to implant a plate and two screws in his spine, DeSanto and his attorney said. The civil lawsuit, seeking compensation and damages, was filed in earler this year in Middlesex County Superior Court.
Rutgers pitcher John O'Reilly, seen here in a game against Iowa, allegedly caused a permanent neck injury to a fellow student in an October 2014 altercation, a lawsuit states. (Associated Press) Nearly a year after the incident, in October 2015, O'Reilly pleaded guilty in Piscataway Municipal Court to a reduced charge of disturbing the peace, the lawsuit states. Yet the baseball player received no discipline from the university, either before or after the plea, DeSanto and his lawyer said in interviews.
"I find it shocking and disappointing that someone could do something like this and continue on completely unscathed in a school system in this day and age," said the lawyer, Jeff Fritz. "The school has a code of conduct that clearly would apply here, yet despite Albert's attempts to have the school do something about it, he just got turned away every step of the way."
DeSanto, a Hillsborough resident who was 25 at the time of the incident, questioned whether O'Reilly would have been treated differently were he not a scholarship athlete.
"I've come to the conclusion that the administration acted improperly on this in order to avoid bad publicity and to protect O'Reilly, ultimately at my expense," he said.
A Rutgers spokesman, E.J. Miranda, declined to comment on the claim, citing privacy protections under the Family and Education Right and Privacy Act.
"As a general rule, and respecting student privacy interests and FERPA legal obligations, the university does not comment on matters involving student discipline," Miranda said.
O'Reilly, a resident of Northvale in Bergen County, did not respond to an email sent to his university account. His father, Michael O'Reilly, said in a telephone interview that a simple assault charge against his son was dropped and that John O'Reilly pleaded guilty only to disturbing the peace, a disorderly persons offense.
"Look, it's an 18-year-old kid in his first semester at college. What do I say?" he said. "I don't know why this is news a year and a half later."
The father said he was unaware of the extent of DeSanto's injuries.
The suit does not name Rutgers as a defendant, though Fritz said suing the university remains "under consideration."
O'Reilly, a graduate of Northern Valley Regional High School and a double major in criminal justice and labor studies, is a starter on the university's baseball team and ranks among Rutgers' top pitchers.
According to the lawsuit, the altercation with DeSanto unfolded around 2 a.m. on Oct. 18, 2014.
DeSanto, a former standout baseball player and academic All-American at Raritan Valley Community College, said he was returning to his room in the south tower of Lynton Towers on the Livingston campus when he saw O'Reilly, beer in hand, open a janitor's closet and pull out a hose.
Clearly intoxicated, O'Reilly began spraying the hallway with water and threatened to turn the hose on DeSanto, who told the ballplayer he didn't want to be sprayed and to put the hose away, the lawsuit states.
DeSanto said O'Reilly backed him into a corner, prompting the smaller man to push O'Reilly away.
Infuriated, the ballplayer told DeSanto, "If you put your hands on me again I'm going to give you the worse (sic) concussion you ever had," according to a report written by an investigator with the Rutgers University Police Department.
Both the lawsuit and the police report state that O'Reilly then grabbed a wall shelf and repeatedly raised it over his head, as if he was going to strike DeSanto. A witness told police he managed to take the board away from O'Reilly, the report says.
Moments later, as DeSanto was returning to his dorm room, O'Reilly came up behind him, wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him off the ground, the lawsuit states.
The action injured the bones in DeSanto's neck and exacerbated a head injury he had suffered in 2009, while a student at Ramapo College. In that case, DeSanto was duct-taped to a chair and pushed through a hallway of his dormitory in an event known as the Dorm Olympics, according to a published account.
The injury occurred when DeSanto's head smashed into a cinder-block wall. In 2013, he reached a $375,000 settlement from the state.
In the suit against O'Reilly, DeSanto said the attack resulted in new migraines and a feeling of constant pressure behind his eyes.
DeSanto, a senior double majoring in political science and information technology, said he was unable to finish out the semester and missed two more semesters as he underwent surgery and recovered from the injury. He returned to the university this spring.
DeSanto said he still doesn't know why O'Reilly targeted him. The two had known each other for about a month, he said, and did not have any previous conflicts.
"I'm still unsure why," he said. "I was completely sober in my dormitory hallway and returning to my room to go to bed."
Staff writer Keith Sargeant contributed to this report.
Mark Mueller may be reached at mmueller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkJMueller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.