By LOU CHIBBARO JR., Washington Blade
Apr 22 2008, 9:44 AM  |     |     |  

The United States Attorney’s office on April 17 dropped an assault charge against a Georgetown University student who had been accused by D.C. police of physically attacking a fellow Georgetown student last fall while shouting anti-gay epithets at him.

Police on Sept. 27 charged Philip Anderton Cooney, then a 19-year-old Georgetown sophomore and the son of a former White House official, with simple assault, a misdemeanor, in connection with a Sept. 9 gay bashing incident that took place less than two blocks from the main entrance to the campus.

The U.S. Attorney’s office later upgraded the charge to a “bias related” assault motivated by animus toward the victim’s perceived sexual orientation. But the office changed its mind and withdrew that designation several weeks before dropping the charge last week, according to sources familiar with the case.

“After further investigation of this matter, we concluded that there was insufficient evidence to obtain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Channing Phillips, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Cooney’s attorney, Danny Onorato, said at the time of Cooney’s arrest that the victim had falsely identified his client as the perpetrator in the assault after seeing Cooney’s photo in Facebook, the social networking site. A police affidavit says the victim did not know Cooney and found his photo in Facebook after receiving a tip from a friend who claimed to have overheard other students talking about the incident.

“Philip was always completely innocent of the charges against him and the dismissal of the case has vindicated him entirely,” Onorato said in a statement. “To know Philip Cooney is to know a young man of exemplary character who was wrongly accused in this case.”

Onorato said he believes someone else committed the assault on the other student, a 22-year-old male.

Sgt. Brett Parson, commander of the police department’s community liaison units, including the Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit, which investigated the Georgetown assault incident, said police would not reopen the case to seek another suspect.

“There is no need for us to pursue the case further,” Parson said. “I am satisfied that we obtained all the evidence necessary to close the case,” he said.

“The U.S. Attorney’s office said the case did not meet its threshold based on their standards, which we respect,” Parson said. “Our standards for making an arrest are different, and it’s up to them to decide whether to pursue cases like this.”

The U.S. Attorney’s office filed a motion to drop the charge against Cooney in D.C. Superior Court on April 17, during the same week that GU Pride, the Georgetown University gay student group, held its annual campus LGBTQ Pride Week.

Last October, members of GU Pride organized a campus protest to draw attention to what they said was the university’s failure to alert students about the anti-gay assault that Cooney had been charged with committing against a fellow student.

Leaders of the group complained that university officials withheld information about the incident for nearly two weeks, until the day of Cooney’s arrest, saying the university subjected other gay students to potential danger from someone who appeared to be targeting gays for assault.

Based in part on the bias related assault charge filed against Cooney, Georgetown University President John DeGioa agreed to a request by GU Pride that the university establish a campus gay resource center and improved procedures for reporting “incidents of intolerance.” The university has said the gay center is expected to open in the next school year.

Olivia Chitayat, co-president of GU Pride, said the group has no comment on the U.S. Attorney's office's decision to drop the charge against Cooney.

"We feel this was in the realm of the courts, not GU Pride to make any decisions," she said.

Chitayat said the group's campaign last fall in response to the gay bashing incident was aimed at changing the "campus climate" to make it safe and accepting for gay students. She said GU Pride believes the university's administration has kept its promises to make those changes by agreeing to establish a gay resource center along with other measures.

The victim of the assault, who lives in an off-campus dormitory near where the assault took place, also did not respond to a request for comment.

The victim of the assault, who lives in an off-campus dormitory near where the assault took place, also did not respond to a request for comment.

The victim told police his attacker began calling him “faggot” as the victim walked past a townhouse on the 3600 block of O Street, N.W., where people were congregating about 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 9. According to a police affidavit in support of Cooney’s arrest, the victim reported being followed by Cooney and at least one other person. He told police the attacker, later identified as Cooney, allegedly “tackled and punched complainant about the head and face with closed fists,” the police affidavit says.

The victim was treated and released at Georgetown University Hospital for injuries he sustained in the assault, a police report says.

“Before going forward in any criminal case, we must feel confident that a crime has been committed and that the person charged is the person who committed the crime,” U.S. Attorney spokesperson Phillips said in a statement. “Our subsequent investigation raised doubts as to the second factor, that is, whether based upon available evidence we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant in this case was the person who actually committed the assault.”

In response to a question from the Blade, Phillips said he was making inquires to determine if investigators with the police or his office attempted to seek out witnesses linking Cooney to the area where the assault occurred.

Onorato said he was prepared to present evidence showing that Cooney was not present in the immediate area where the assault took place.

“Philip was with friends at a small gathering at a fellow student’s house,” he said.

Julie Green Bataille, a spokesperson for Georgetown University, said the university “respects the autonomy of the U.S. Attorney’s decision and the independence of the external criminal proceeding.”

She said that consistent with Georgetown’s student code of conduct, “both undergraduates involved remain students in good standing while the university’s confidential review of this incident is ongoing.”

“It is not appropriate for the university to comment on the specifics of the alleged incident, other than to say that it is critical that Georgetown’s internal processes be able to address incidents of student conduct in a fair and impartial manner that do not in any way pre-judge what may have occurred,” she said.

Shortly after the incident occurred, Green Bataille said the university condemns hate crimes against all groups and would take steps to promote a campus dialogue on the subject of intolerance and prejudice.

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