For victims of 2001 frat house break-in, questions linger about NBC News anchor Tom Llamas’s role in the case
|
Version 0 of 3. A frat house rivalry escalated into a home invasion, a severe beating and nearly a dozen arrests – including that of Loyola University New Orleans’ future star alum, who was said to be outside the invaded house. Llamas was never formally charged – while those close to the victims say there were no meaningful consequences On an episode of Kelly Clarkson’s talkshow in June, Loyola University New Orleans received the kind of publicity many schools dream of. Clarkson’s guest was Tom Llamas, newly minted anchor of the NBC Nightly News and a 2001 Loyola alumnus. And Llamas nodded when it was posed to him that he had gone to “one of the best communications schools in the country”. “That’s why I went there,” he said of Loyola. The private Catholic university in Louisiana’s most famous city posted a clip of the exchange on Facebook on 16 July. Most of the replies were jubilant. But others snapped. Some on that site and other social media platforms took the chance to revive questions about an incident otherwise mostly forgotten: when Llamas and members of a Greek fraternity of which he was president were arrested in connection with a violent break-in reported at a rival group’s house after a neighborhood bar fight. Taking place in the middle of the night, the attack left a member of the other fraternity badly beaten, saw the victim’s girlfriend get pushed to the ground, and resulted in thousands of dollars of property damage as the intruders trashed furniture and broke windows. Two of Llamas’s own fraternity brothers told the Guardian that he was outside the home but never went in at the time of the incident. And authorities decided there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him. Ten more of his brothers in Sigma Phi Epsilon (SigEp) similarly had charges dismissed or reduced. A handful – but not Llamas – paid settlements or restitution amid related civil litigation. A statement issued through an NBC spokesperson said Llamas “as an undergraduate student at Loyola University nearly 25 years ago … was one of 11 students indiscriminately arrested following a fight and alleged break-in at another fraternity”. “Tom as well as most of those students were not involved in the incident,” the statement continued. “Following extensive reviews by both the university and local authorities, Tom and those not involved were never accused of any wrongdoing or found to have violated any laws or school rules.” The statement alluded to local press reports that were published at the time before concluding: “Tom graduated from Loyola in 2001 and remains a loyal supporter of the school.” NBC provided the statement after the Guardian spoke with roughly two dozen people with knowledge of the case. One of those people, SigEp member Eric Rust, said he understood from conversations with him that Llamas went to the house that was broken into on the night of the intrusion – but did not go inside and left when he realized the nature of the situation. Using a college-era nickname for Llamas, Rust , who was arrested alongside him before their cases were dismissed, told the Guardian: “From what I know, Tommy did the same thing as I did: showed up but didn’t come inside.” A second SigEp member, Timothy Fanguy, told the Guardian that Llamas “was standing outside when all of this went down”. A third SigEp member, Joseph Deeb, said he, Llamas and others were arrested because “one witness … claimed to have identified 18 of us at night in the dark within about two minutes”. “Some of them were there – don’t get me wrong,” said Deeb, whose case was also dismissed. But he asserted that he and Llamas were among “about four” who were unjustifiably arrested on a flawed identification process. Fanguy said that process involved a female witness picking out people she recognized from a fraternity composite shown to her – among them some who weren’t in New Orleans at the time. Those on the victims’ side acknowledged the official conclusion that nothing was provable beyond a reasonable doubt against any suspect in a state-level criminal court of law. Yet they smarted over how Llamas has neither publicly condemned the break-in – involving members of the frat he ran as president during his senior year, when he himself was said to be outside the house – nor publicly expressed sympathy to its victims. They also say they have not seen any evidence that he ever tried stopping the incident. Instead, one of Llamas’s few comments on the case characterized it as a fight at a house – and he once described himself as “happy” the male victim’s fraternity was sanctioned with respect to a broader feud between that group and Llamas’s SigEp organization. “Something terrible happened to [someone who was just] home, and … nobody was like, ‘Hey, that must have been awful for you,’” said one of the people intimately familiar with the victims’ thinking. Deeb, Rust and Fanguy all stood up for Llamas in their conversations with the Guardian, maintaining that it was at best confusing – if not unfair – for him to be dealing with questions about something that happened roughly 25 years earlier. NBC, after issuing its statement, did not respond to questions about whether Llamas would acknowledge the fraternity brothers’ statements that placed him outside the home at the center of the case, or if – as the group’s president – he did anything to try to stop or discourage the incident. Those aligned with the break-in victims said it was important for them to speak out because the home invasion episode and Llamas’s physical proximity to it complicated the persona he has built: someone whose relentless pursuit for truth and public accountability catapulted him to the pinnacle of his industry, where he signs his newscasts off with “tonight and always we’re here for you.” Information from a retired police officer potentially illuminates why Llamas once came under suspicion. The officer, Catherine Beckett, now maintains that the female break-in victim allegedly recognized a schoolmate she knew as “Tommy” as one of the SigEp members there. Beckett took handwritten notes at the time – and shared them with the Guardian. Using abbreviations for “perpetrators”, “Sigma” and “Epsilon”, those notes say “Tommy” was “one of the perp ΣE”. The only suspect arrested known as “Tommy” was Llamas. Legal experts told the Guardian that people in Louisiana who are present for a break-in potentially face arrest even if they don’t go into the targeted home, though a prosecution would hinge on the state’s ability to prove intent. Regardless, a person familiar with the female break-in victim’s thinking said she didn’t recall her conversation with Beckett, along with other details about the crime. The person said the female victim blamed her memory lapse on the trauma of an attack that began with unnerving, incessant doorbell ringing – and culminated with her boyfriend being brutalized and her being manhandled. To this day, that victim cannot hear a ringing doorbell without triggering unwelcome memories of the break-in. “If [people] ring the doorbell too many times, [she’s], like, hiding,” the person closely familiar with that victim said. ‘There’s a mob going there’ The Loyola SigEp chapter had dealt with issues pitting it against the university-specific Beggars fraternity since the 1980s. Deeb said the Beggars had previously “jumped” him and some SigEp friends. The Beggars counter that the SigEp members were the aggressors in the feud plenty of times. Either way, both sides agreed their differences eventually reached a boiling point – and Deeb said that “everybody got sick of it one night”. According to news reports at the time, the groups clashed “over a girl” at a bar in the neighborhood surrounding Loyola either just before or after midnight on 22 February 2001. Then, at about 2.20 that morning, a large group of attackers kicked in the front door at a house just across from Loyola’s campus and barged through a floor-to-ceiling window. The three-story house doubled as the Beggars’ unofficial headquarters. Police and people familiar with the victims said the only Beggar there was absent from the bar, studying at home for a medical school entrance exam while his girlfriend, battling a cold, watched television. Attackers reportedly punched and kicked the young man in the face, leaving him with swelling and two black eyes, a fellow resident and fraternity brother told the Times-Picayune newspaper. The invaders shoved his girlfriend to the floor and shattered four windows, a 16ft table and several chairs, the Times-Picayune reported, citing police. Loyola’s student newspaper, the Maroon, later reported that a contractor estimated the cost of the damage as at least $4,000. After the victims called police, the beaten man said “his attackers were members of another [Loyola] fraternity”, the Times-Picayune reported. The paper approached Llamas – then a senior Loyola communications and drama major – for comment. He reportedly said “some of his fraternity’s members were in an altercation at the [Beggars’] house but would not elaborate”, according to the paper. The commander of the New Orleans police district that includes Loyola, Louis Dabdoub, recalled his officers’ instinct was to write the case off as “stupid fraternity stuff”. However, Dabdoub recalled more recently, it turned out to be “way beyond a typical … house ruckus between guys”. “This was planned, methodical, ‘We’re gonna break into a place and hurt whoever is there,’” Dabdoub said. “This was … conspiring and getting enough people together to beat someone to the point of severe injury.” He said it was “the definition” of felony aggravated burglary under Louisiana law. Investigators obtained judicial permission to arrest Llamas and 10 other SigEp members on a count of aggravated burglary. Ultimately, five suspects were taken into custody on the same day officers obtained arrest warrants in the case. Llamas and Rust were among six who surrendered later, according to press reports at the time. Asked why he believed he was implicated, Rust said the break-in and ensuing investigation had evidently been so chaotic that some people who he knew for a fact had gone into the home during the intrusion were never arrested. He also alleged that up to half of the actual home invaders were out-of-town visitors celebrating that year’s Mardi Gras season. Rust said – as he best recalled – his arrest came after he and others showed up at the local neighborhood bar on the night of the break-in and were surprised to find the establishment empty. He recalled someone saying: “You need to go the Beggars’ house – shit’s happening … There’s a fight. There’s a mob going there.” Rust said he then went to the Beggars house, and the scene that greeted him there was “a little bigger than expected”. “I see everything, and I’m like, ‘Oh shit – I’m out of here,” Rust said. He continued: “I didn’t go with Tommy to the house, but … Tommy told me the same thing happened. ‘Yeah, saw that shit and got out of there.’” Fanguy said he has had conversations with his fellow SigEp members, including at a fantasy football draft recently – and those talks confirmed that “Tommy was outside and was not inside during this time”. “Some people wound up inside the house,” said Fanguy, who was at home in an off-campus apartment in the New Orleans suburb of Harahan at the time of the reported break-in. “But I can confirm … I do remember very clearly that not a single person said Tommy was inside. He was standing outside when all of this went down.” ‘Case closed’ Eventually, the local district attorney’s office either dismissed the cases outright – pointing to “testimony insufficient” – or moved them down to a municipal courthouse which handles misdemeanors. Llamas was in the first category, with his case being dismissed less than two months after the break-in. The cases against Deeb and Rust were also dismissed, with prosecutors similarly citing “testimony insufficient”. Municipal court docket entries under the names of defendants whose cases were referred showed dismissed charges of battery or criminal damage to property – or both. The break-in victims and the owner of the home, which the Beggars rented, sued six arrested SigEp members (none of whom was Llamas, Deeb or Rust) for damages in civil court. The plaintiffs sued three others who were not arrested. The burglary victims eventually struck “an agreement to compromise” with four of their lawsuit’s defendants, all of whom had been arrested, court records showed. The Guardian learned at least one paid the couple $5,000 to settle out of court. The Guardian also learned that at least one other person linked to the break-in paid restitution after the criminal case was opened but before the settled lawsuit was filed. There were also disciplinary proceedings at Loyola, with Deeb and Rust saying they and Llamas were among those who were cleared. Deeb also said the male break-in victim – who did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Guardian – “told the truth” during the on-campus disciplinary process about “how a bunch of us not even there … got thrown into it”. Rust contended the male victim testified during the disciplinary process that he and others who were cleared “were not there” in the home – “and that’s it, case closed”. A board handling administrative matters involving fraternities initially ruled that the SigEp charter should be suspended until the end of the following school year. The university then shortened that suspension to midway through the next academic year. The Beggars were simultaneously put on disciplinary probation and prohibited from displaying their Greek letters, among other penalties, after the interfraternity judicial board (IJB) found it “culpable of behavior inappropriate of a Loyola organization”, as the Maroon reported. The Beggars also admitted being “culpable with mitigating circumstances to a charge of physical aggression”. Both came after SigEp members filed charges with the IJB accusing the Beggars of harassment on the night of the bar fight as well as the subsequent break-in and beating. “We are extremely happy with the outcome,” Llamas told the Maroon at the time. ‘Part of their history’ Llamas graduated from Loyola in May 2001. The Miami native worked his way from local news in his hometown and New York to the national media, winning or being nominated for prestigious broadcast journalism prizes before replacing Lester Holt at NBC in early June. Llamas not only became just the fourth man since 1983 to anchor the NBC Nightly News, a program once synonymous with predecessors Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams. The 46-year-old son of Cuban immigrants also became the first Latino to anchor a weekday English-language broadcast network evening newscast. “My parents came here with nothing … and now I’m going to anchor Nightly News,” Llamas said on NBC’s Today Show in June. “My name’s on that show – that is the American Dream.” Loyola has embraced Llamas, inducting him into its communications school’s hall of fame in 2015. Weeks after boosting Llamas’s appearance on Clarkson’s show, the university promoted a video of him discussing the quality of its journalism program with New Orleans’ NBC affiliate. Such plugs have not sat well with alums who have been close to the 2001 break-in victims. They say they accept that Llamas was not convicted of a crime, but they believe it is a mistake to act like some unquestioned things didn’t occur, even if an alum struck it big professionally. A Loyola spokesperson issued a statement to the Guardian saying the university “celebrates the achievements of its alumni based on their professional accomplishments and contributions to society”. One of the people closely familiar with the victims’ thinking laughed bitterly upon being read Loyola’s statement. “No one has ever said sorry – at least not in public,” that person said. “And, as far as I am aware, they have not done that privately, either.” Ramon Antonio Vargas is a 2009 Loyola alum. He was previously editor of the Maroon and serves as Loyola’s athletics hall of fame historian on an unpaid, volunteer basis. |