constituting the offense of coercion [against the sheriff, Tommy and local law enforcement].” On December 18, 1970, HWS was officially indicted on coercion charges in what Dr. Allan Kuusisto P’78, who succeeded Causey as HWS President in late 1970, called “a landmark case for higher education;” the While Campbell, Keuka College student Melanie indictment marked the Davis and Wallace and Clarence Youngs ’72 first time that “a college Martinez were has been charged with having their hair criminal activities relating to a campus cut and faces shaved in jail, a police disorder.” officer stood next to them, threatening “Our initial reaction,” Kuusisto said them that they were “going to get a at the time, “is one of shock, surprise and bullet between the eyes” if they “acted discouragement that our neighbors on the up.”…[They] were offered no food of jury have chosen to take this unusual course any kind, even though they were in jail of action.” during the noon hour when meals are fed to all other prisoners. -------Hobart Student Council Treasurer Tim On July 31, , Tommy was arrested Yolen ’72 “was given the run-around from Geneva to Canandaigua and back,” for defrauding the state of unemployment according to the Scranton Commission pay benefits, a total of $1,105 he’d received Report, but eventually posted “the between mid-January and mid-May of 1970, unusually high bail of $6,000” for during which time he was employed by the Campbell, Davis and Martinez. Ontario County Sheriff’s Office. Campbell is sure they were “singled Frank Pullano P’84, former president out and identified as the of the Geneva Chamber of Commerce and a ring leaders of the riot, long-time friend of the Colleges, never knew which is ironic since we Tommy himself, but he recalls the day that in fact acted to prevent summer that Joe Hessney, former Geneva violence from occurring.” police commissioner, “walked into my In July 1970, after office and said, ‘This guy [Tommy] is a Tommy’s role as an good guy. He wants to be a policeman— undercover agent was made that’s why he did this. Can you help me public, Governor Nelson bail him out?’” Rockefeller convened a This was an opinion shared by much TIM YOLEN ’72 special Grand Jury, which, of the city at the time. In her letter to in an unprecedented the city’s newspaper, Geneva resident turn, alleged that “through two of its Catherine C. Blood wrote in support highest managerial agents [Causey of Tommy, “a most polite, gracious, and McKean],” Hobart and William respectable young man [who] hunts, Smith Colleges—the school itself—had fishes, golfs and skis with the many “recklessly tolerated certain conduct friends he has made among several of the very best young family men in our city.” Tommy’s wife, Margaret Lynn, taught “A LANDMARK CASE FOR Pullano’s son, David ’84, first grade at St. HIGHER EDUCATION;” THE Stephen’s in Geneva. INDICTMENT MARKED THE FIRST Tommy’s bail cost Pullano and TIME THAT “A COLLEGE HAS Hessney about “two or three hundred bucks apiece,” Pullano says, but Hessney BEEN CHARGED WITH CRIMINAL told Pullano that Tommy “was the type of ACTIVITIES RELATING TO A guy who’s honest. You’ll probably get your CAMPUS DISORDER.” money back.” handcuffed, and could not comply.” According to the Scranton Commission Report, Campbell, Davis and Martinez were “transferred from the Geneva jail to the Canandaigua jail by a patrol car traveling at speeds in excess of 90 m.p.h.”
1970
20 Pulteney Street Survey | Winter 2014
Tommy would eventually plead guilty to accepting unemployment benefits while he was working for the sheriff’s department. His sentence was a year of probation and a directive to repay the money he’d unlawfully collected. “About two or three years later,” Pullano says, “Joe and I each got a check in the mail from Tommy for his bail paid in full.” --------
1971
By early January , Bennett and Sheppard were sentenced to eight and six months in jail, respectively, for their roles in the ROTC firebombing. Tommy, meanwhile, had been acquitted of “conspiracy to commit arson, criminal solicitation and criminal facilitation in the fire-bombing,” as well as the harassment charge brought against him by Martinez. Not long after, under the direction of State Supreme Court Justice Fredrick M. Marshall, the jury acquitted the Colleges of all charges. The charges of rioting and obstruction brought against the students and Krause were also dropped. “Suffice it to say, the Judge’s directions conveyed a thorough repudiation of the kind of thinking that had gone into the Grand Jury’s deliberations,” wrote Kuusisto in the 1970-71 Annual Report to the HWS Trustees. “Now that the Colleges have been vindicated, we can look back on the whole affair as a difficult incident but one which served…in reminding us what precious commodities our
Francis Gregory Sheppard and Gary Bennett, May 2, 1970