George Hopkins Charged with two Counts Sexual Assault

[Jeff Ream]

5 hours ago, Terri Schehr said:

Tricia posted the lawsuit in the article I posted below.

"plaintiff prays for a judgement"...on page 12.

 

pray hard

[BRASSO]

1 hour ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Can YEA! sue Hopkins for damaging the organization's reputation?

 Sure. Lawyers sue for all sorts of things these days now.

 But the better question might be..." can they sue successfully ?." ( win and recover financial damages for their client.. YEA ) I suppose that will demand upon a lot of variables, some we might not be privy to,  but my initial thought is probably.... " no ". Besides, if the guy is near broke ( or will be ), the chances of recovering any financial damages on any court award with a guy that might be going to jail, or at the least, won't be making $200,000 a year on any future job ( he's approaching his mid 60's ), seems slim to none to me. Lawyers like to get paid ( no surprise.. haha!). They don't take on cases for moral victories. If they likely can't recover court awarded financial damages for their client, most of 'em are likely smart enough not to sue a guy potentially going down in financial flames,.. or perhaps to prison.

Edited November 14, 2018 by BRASSO

[phd-student-TTU]

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is about to get a lot worse for several people in DCI. 

[cixelsyd]

13 hours ago, Terri Schehr said:

From the 11/4 article:  

"YEA has until Thursday to respond to Hopkins’ lawsuit, which alleges that the organization owes him one month’s pay for each of his 35 years at YEA, as spelled out in his contract. At the time he left YEA, the lawsuit says, Hopkins was being paid $199,000 a year, meaning severance alone would amount to more than $580,000. He also claims he is owed $33,074 for unpaid business expenses, bonus pay for 2017, unused vacation time, and the YEA contribution to his 401(k) account."

One problem with those claims - YEA did not even exist 35 years ago.  It was founded in 1990.

[cixelsyd]

16 hours ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

I am not sure where the rock bottom is yet - this might just be a ledge

I prefer to think that "rock bottom" was when we were just saying that GH was not even going to be charged with any crimes.  So this news is the first ledge on our climb back up.

13 hours ago, Tim K said:

I don't think we're going to hear of this kind of behavior from most corps that have an issue with sexual misconduct. This is not to minimize the seriousness of sexual abuse and misconduct. We will hear about boundary violations, perhaps some coercion, and issues we know are wrong but criminally may fall into gray area with the exception of cases involving minors, which are always criminal . We may hear of more wrong hirings. We will hear of cases which will demonstrate why we need written policies stating zero tolerance, and if appropriate involvement with law enforcement may be necessary, but GH's situation may be different.

The GH situation may be at rock bottom, but of what other posters have said in this thread and others, we may not even be at the ledge yet since all we have are stories, rumors, and hearsay. 

Aptly summarized.  Maybe I am just uninformed... but I think I am caught up on the rumors, and I am not aware of any other stories on the horizon that are even remotely comparable to GH.  They all involve people who have been run out of the activity by now.  (If I have missed something, please restrict your responses to PM.) 

[cixelsyd]

11 hours ago, Fran Haring said:

I hate to say this... but the photo in that article smacks of being an "editorial photo."  Surely there had to be a different shot they could have used.

The only GH photo I ever want to see is a mugshot.

[Fran Haring]

25 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

One problem with those claims - YEA did not even exist 35 years ago.  It was founded in 1990.

I remember the days of the "Cadets Marching Band Cooperative"...CMBC... late 1980s. The forerunner of  USSBA/USBands.

I actually worked as an analyst on a local cable TV broadcast of a CMBC show in Elizabeth, NJ, during that time period. Trust me... Steve Rondinaro was in no danger of losing his job to me. 

[Terri Schehr]

8 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

was it even YEA for all 35 years?

No.  But he was director there 35 years.  And there in other capacities since ‘79, I believe. That’s a long time.  ‘79 was my ageout year. I’m 61.  He was there from my being 21 to practically ready to collect social security. 

[dbc03]

8 hours ago, JimF-LowBari said:

So what is the amount of money YEA brings in every year roughly? Trying to find out the percentage that goes to the heads salary.

Shades of when United Way started putting percentage of operating income that went to administrative costs. Changed how people donated.

Charity Navigator isn't cooperating on my phone but it looks like about $6,000,000 a year, so $200k is about 3% of that

[Fran Haring]

9 hours ago, Terri Schehr said:

I’m thinking he made way more than the executive director of  DCI. 

Which is really bizarre.

Then again, when I lived in NJ there was at least one school superintendent who had a higher salary than the governor of the state.  Also really strange.