Redemption

The Baltimore Sun

NEWARK, Del.-- --It was about 3 o'clock in the morning when the altercation became physical. Harsh words -- racial slurs even -- begot physical blows. A baseball bat was involved. By the time police arrived on the Jersey Shore, one man was down -- a black off-duty police officer -- and authorities were searching Sea Isle City, N.J., for three suspects.

They quickly nabbed two of them near the site of the attack and shortly thereafter picked up the third suspect not far away. That third man was Vincent Giordano, a student at the University of Delaware, a star for the school's lacrosse team, a young man who'd always been bigger than others his age. In fact, his father used to tell him: "You might be bigger, but there's no reason to act like a bully. You respect others."

As the Delaware men's lacrosse team prepares to compete in this weekend's final four, the details of that August 2006 attack are finally clear. But what they'll never fully understand is how and why Giordano, a good kid from a good home, came to find himself in a police station, using his one phone call to wake up his father.

As Guy Giordano says, when your son is calling in the middle of the night, it's never to share good news. Vincent Giordano, 21, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, possession of a weapon and bias intimidation. The victim, Jarreau Francis, 25, suffered a concussion in the attack. Because he was black and his attackers white -- and because racially charged language was used -- authorities labeled it a hate crime.

"It was all pretty devastating," Guy Giordano says. "For all of us. It was one of the worst things you could deal with as a family. I lost my father at 28 and had to take over the family business. I thought that was as bad as it would get. But when something involves your own child, it's just terrible."

And it only got worse.

Giordano was suspended from the lacrosse team and then kicked out of school. Delaware has a policy that automatically expels any student charged with a felony.

As classes started and his lacrosse team held its first team meeting of the year, Giordano was back at his family's Moorestown, N.J., home, talking himself in circles and spiraling into depression. He kept insisting that he wasn't involved in the attack, but it felt like the world was stacked against him.

Giordano wouldn't eat, didn't want to leave the house and didn't really feel like talking -- especially when a local news station showed up and thrust a microphone into the thin crack of the doorway. Well-to-do lacrosse player in trouble -- the local news predictably pounced.

The fact that Giordano denied involvement seemed like a footnote. Even family members took their time to sift through the particulars.

"It took me about 24 hours," his father says, "but I came home the next day, I hugged him, and I told him, 'I know you didn't do it. I'm sorry I doubted you.' And from that point on, we started the process to get his name cleared."

It was hard for anyone who'd met Giordano to fathom that he was involved in a race-related attack, which is why in a news release one day after the attack, Blue Hens lacrosse coach Bob Shillinglaw made certain to include the following: "I have spoken to Vince and he strongly maintains his innocence and that this was a case of mistaken identity. I stand behind him."

That support earned Shillinglaw a flood of angry e-mails. Threatening letters were showing up in the Giordano mailbox, too. The parallels with the Duke lacrosse scandal weren't lost on anyone -- the violence, the school expulsion, the race implications, the confused suspects.

"None of it ever added up for me," Shillinglaw says today. "Vince is a kid who would avoid stepping on an ant. There was no way he did what they said he did. Never in my wildest dreams could I imagine that."

As much of the nation's attention was focused on the Duke scandal, Giordano's family quietly waged its battle. The family hired a private investigator and conducted a polygraph test.

While his teammates were doing offseason conditioning back in Newark, Giordano was alone in his backyard with a lacrosse stick in hand. His family hired a successful Atlantic City, N.J., lawyer named Edwin J. Jacobs, who kept reassuring them that he'd get Giordano his life back.

"But what about lacrosse?" they'd say. And when the lawyer tried to tell them that wasn't as important, their rebuttal was already loaded in the barrel. "I kept saying, 'You have absolutely no idea,' " says Guy Giordano. " 'If he misses next season, he just will never be the same again.' "

The investigator and Giordano's attorney met with prosecutors and laid out their evidence -- the polygraph test, witness accounts that had Giordano several blocks away from the fight, photos that showed Giordano didn't have a scratch on him. Not only was he not in the fight, they contended, but Giordano also had never met the other two attackers and was actually hanging out with his own buddies at a party.

"It was almost like watching a movie," Shillinglaw says, "but none of us had seen the movie script before it played, so we didn't know for sure what would happen or how it would turn out."

The justice system can be timed with a calendar, not a stopwatch. That's why for nearly four months, Giordano's future was uncertain. He was working out at a gym Dec. 18 when his younger sister burst through the doors with the news: The charges against him had been dropped.

Cape May County prosecutors said the other two attackers -- 23-year-old Keith Hoffman, of Folcroft, Pa., and 21-year-old Thomas Russo, of Lansdowne, Pa. -- confessed that they intentionally misidentified Giordano to protect a friend.

"It was the best news you could imagine," says Giordano, 21. "I just wanted to get back to school right away and start where I left off. I didn't want to forget about what had happened, but I didn't want to dwell on it either. I just needed to move on."

Everyone around the Delaware team knew how important it was to have Giordano back. With him, all the pieces were in place for a special season. While many lacrosse fans might be surprised that Delaware is among the last four teams standing, the Blue Hens knew this was a possibility all along.

Never mind that the other three teams competing this weekend -- Cornell, Johns Hopkins and Duke -- have combined for 94 NCAA tournament wins, 40 final four appearances and 11 national titles, while the Blue Hens had just one measly tournament victory before this season. The Hens learned before they played a single game that fate has a wicked sense of humor.

Shillinglaw uses Giordano's four-month nightmare as a teachable moment, reminding his players that they can't take anything for granted. Giordano doesn't. "I think I made every one of my 9 a.m. classes this year," he says with a smile. "That's not easy to do."

Every second on the field now feels like a gift. Giordano has nine goals and six assists in the Hens' past eight games.

"I try not to think about it, but it's hard to really put it all the way in the past," Giordano says. "My dad kept telling me that this would just make me stronger, emotionally and mentally. This thing happened. I can't change it. It's just part of who I am, you know, part of my past."

rick.maese@baltsun.com

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