The "Tradition" at Fort Chiswell High

Object Sexual Penetration and No One is Arrested

March 2, 2020

Last summer, all across the Commonwealth of Virginia, thousands of high school seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen were dropping, jumping, blocking, and catching, hoping to make the local football squad. A seasonal ritual for young men from Tidewater's brackish beaches all the way into the winding and rugged mountains of southwestern Virginia. 

In Max Meadows, around the rural edges of Wythe County, Fort Chiswell High School - with about 500 students - was no different and each boy that Tuesday morning hoped like hell to play on the Pioneer varsity football team. The temperature on that 16th day in July would reach a high of 85 degrees and wanna be Pioneers quietly cursed position coaches when they weren't looking, and even when they were. The practice field, sandwiched between an asphalt track and hidden behind the high school, was almost empty. The boys half-jogged to the locker room just off the field, where sweat and summer grass was soaped up and rinsed away.

In that mix of youth and vigor, Riddell helmets and smelly jockstraps, 14-year-old Levi Groseclose showered fast and soon was back in gym shorts and sandals. He maneuvered his 5'6, 195-pound tailback frame around the other boys and towards the exit door when he heard teammates talking about "the tradition." According to Levi, that Pioneer tradition goes back years and involves older football players grabbing freshman and sophomore athletes and sexually assaulting them. 

Levi, with his mother at his side, told this reporter that as many as four players grabbed him and threw him on his back. Wythe County school officials would later concede in a private letter that Levi's "team members" had planned the sexual assault weeks earlier "as a means of initiation onto the football team." Levi said his attackers pinned down his arms and lifted up both legs, and then "my shorts were ripped open and I felt a finger up my butt." Groseclose said at least two players penetrated him and he held up the shorts and underwear he was wearing during the attack. There were silver dollar-sized holes in the back of both pieces of clothing. 

"I was screaming and telling them to get off me. I was mad and I was throwing punches, but there were too many of 'em." Levi, who transferred from Fort Chiswell to George Wythe High a few days after the attack, said the assault lasted less than thirty seconds, but he can't get it out of his mind. The freshman said he cursed and screamed but no one helped him. According to Levi, Fort Chiswell's head football coach, Chris Akers ''was in his office just a few feet away but he never came out. I don't know if [Coach Akers] heard me screaming." 

Levi said while his attackers inserted their fingers into his rectum, as many as ten other players watched, laughed, and possibly recorded the sexual assault on their cell phones. 

Makenzi Witchley, Levi's mother, said another parent told her that football players at Fort Chiswell had shared video of the assault. "Other students have been told there's video of the attack and I can't understand how [Fort Chiswell] principal [Dyer Jackson III], or the [Wythe County] School Board, or the [Wythe County] Sheriff's office, no one has checked the football players cell phones" to investigate the claim.

"This is heartbreaking,' Witchley said. "I was crying for two days after finding out. Why would somebody do that? How could someone not help my son?"

On August 1, 2019, approximately two weeks after the attack, Levi's mother received a letter from the Wythe County School Board that read in part; "This letter is to inform you that, following an investigation of sexual harassment of your child, Levi Groseclose, an investigation was conducted by Wythe County Public Schools. The allegations state four students restrained Levi in the locker room after football practice and inserted a finger in his anus... and we have determined that there was restraint and poking in the buttocks area, but we were unable to confirm object penetration."

The letter from the Wythe County School Board continues; "It is our determination that, over the period of several weeks, Levi was purposely lead by team members to believe that he would be sexually assaulted as a means of initiation on the football team- although we do not believe there was ever intent to actually commit sexual assault. The matter has been reported to law enforcement as required, and the division has taken action to provide added supervision and education to team players. Due to confidentiality restrictions, we are unable to share any further information."

The letter, on school board letterhead, concludes with a clear order for the victim, Levi Groseclose; "Please advise Levi [that] retaliation against him or any individual involved in this investigation is strictly prohibited and will result in additional consequences." The six-paragraph letter is signed by Mary F. Henslee, LCSW, Social Worker, Title IX Compliance.

Superintendent Scott L. Jefferies approved the controversial letter before it was mailed to Ms. Witchley, who said she was furious when she read it. The four boys who physically restrained and poked her son "in the buttocks area" were suspended for the first football game of the 2019 Pioneer season and that appears to be the extent of their school punishment. 

Witchley reached out to the Wythe County Sheriff's Office to ask why no one from the Fort Chiswell High school football team had been charged in connection with the sexual assault of her son. Witchley was told that the Wythe County prosecutor advised the Fort Chiswell High school resource officer, a Wythe County Sheriff's deputy, to turn the case over to juvenile court who decided to "do the diversion program with [the accused players]." That controversial decision avoided any misdemeanor or felony charges for the boys involved. So then it became official; a one-game suspension was sufficient for at least four football players who admitted to planning a sexual assault as part of a football "initiation" at Fort Chiswell High School.

This reporter reviewed a series of texts sent by one of the alleged attackers, who, within minutes of the assault, apologized and begged Levi to never tell anyone what happened. The offensive lineman, who recently signed a letter-of-intent to play in-state college football, wrote in a separate text that almost four years earlier, he too, as a freshman, had been sexually assaulted in the same locker room. He claimed his attacker was also a former Pioneer who last season was a starter on the football team at a prestigious, in-state public military college. 

The excerpt below is one of several lengthy Snapchat messages sent directly to Levi less than an hour after the mid-July locker room assault. Sent via social media by a 5'11, 260-pound self-described attacker who wrote that he too had been assaulted as a 14-year old freshman. He also describes a third unidentified male student attacked in a similar style who quit the team after the assault.

"But [Levi] I don't want you mad at us anymore... I have never been mad cause the first time Colby messed with me when I was a freshman I almost quit no lie he had already made the other one quit and I was fed up cause I had [zero] friends on the team"

Almost eight months have passed since the summer attack and the question still remains; how could Levi Groseclose, a freshman, be sexually assaulted inside the boys locker room and both the Fort Chiswell High school principal and the school board agree, that keeping the victims' attackers off the field for four quarters was sufficient punishment and satisfied the need for justice? Scott L. Jefferies, the Wythe County school superintendent returned this reporters' call and stayed on message. "Mr. Salinas, I am not going to indicate or answer any of the questions regarding student discipline."

Levi Groseclose said at first he was embarrassed by what happened to him. He thought if he just kept quiet things would turn out ok. But hours became days and the freshman football player decided to not let it go. "Because it needs to be known that [sexual assault] can't just happen to people - like, it's not tradition. It needs to stop."

What about students, and even some adults who say they know the Pioneer program and can't believe that sexual attacks could ever happen inside the Fort Chiswell school locker room. [They can] "believe what they want to believe,' Levi said. 'I know it happened. I wouldn't lie about it. You just don't lie about something like this."

Levi's mother, Makenzi is a momma bear who knows one thing for sure, "If these football players had attacked a 14-year-old GIRL inside the Fort Chiswell locker room, everyone involved would be in jail."

The second part of this story involves correspondence between investigators, prosecutors, and school resource officers and is being vetted.

ABOUT THE REPORTER: Orly Salinas is a freelance journalist formerly with NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News.

"News should be unfettered, unvarnished, and painfully transparent. Period."