Student back on campus will face disciplinary review
Correction: A new version of this story has been posted due to a factual error. The Justice regrets the error.Daniel Ortner '10 is allowed back on campus for the fall semester and is awaiting disciplinary action after allegedly assaulting an Aramark employee at the C-store last May. Ortner was not permitted on campus over the summer.
Ortner, a former Forum editor at the Justice, was neither charged nor arrested, but settled the case with Aramark Assistant Food Services Director Jessica Hill before a scheduled June 4 hearing in Waltham's district court. Hill pressed charges four days after the incident, Ortner's lawyer Sam Goldberg told the Justice in May.
Ortner, Goldberg and Hill reached an agreement that "the matter had been blown out of proportion and that resolution without involving the criminal justice system was the most appropriate solution," Goldberg wrote in an e-mail to the Justice.
The details of the settlement are confidential, Goldberg wrote. "I do not expect any further legal action taken toward [Ortner]," he continued.
Although legal charges have been dropped, Ortner will face University disciplinary review at an as-yet undetermined date. Director of Student Development and Conduct Erika Lamarre would not comment specifically on Ortner's case but said, "Our [disciplinary] proceeding is independent of criminal proceedings."
Section 19.1 of the Rights and Responsibilities Handbook says that students in violation of the handbook will be contacted to schedule a meeting with an administrator and will then receive written charges. "The student may accept responsibility and choose administrative action or may accept or deny responsibility and request a hearing before the University Board on Student Conduct," the handbook reads.
If Ortner sits before the UBSC he will be permitted to appoint an adviser affiliated with the school. He is not permitted to have a lawyer present as there are no legal charges against him.
Ortner is currently registered in the University and living on campus.
"I missed out over the summer. I missed Brandeis," he said.
Correction: The article originally stated that Ortner attended a June 4 hearing in Waltham's District Court. That hearing never took place.
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