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Yolanda Rodriguez and Craig Schneider - Staff Friday, October 20, 2000 To much of metro Atlanta, it was never really about bashing mailboxes. It was all about what's wrong with kids and parents and schools and football. But the story of two east Cobb high school students arrested in August came to a court of law Thursday. And one of the boys, who suffered the hate mail and the nasty late-night phone calls and the brunt of strangers' outrage, walked out a free person. Free from charges, and free to play football tonight in the Walton High Raiders' homecoming game. "The weight of the world has been lifted," said Vincent Errico, 17, celebrating with his parents in their east Cobb home. "Thank God it's over." As for the other student, a Cobb County grand jury indicted Donnie Newsome on three felony charges --- theft by taking, theft by receiving and criminal damage to property --- and about two dozen misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass for each of the battered mailboxes. Each felony count carries a maximum of 10 years in prison. District Attorney Pat Head said that Errico has no charges pending. "We're done with him," he said. William Newsome, Donnie's father, said: "There are always more than two sides to every story, and that will certainly come out." Asked whether his 17-year-old son is innocent of the charges, he said, "Absolutely." And despite the clearing of his son, Jim Errico was left with a tinge of bitterness. "All the people on the school board, I really have a problem with," he said. "This could have happened to anybody. "To do something like that to children, when you don't know the whole story, really bothers me. I thought this was America, where you're innocent until proven guilty. . . . It's terrible." Vincent Errico said Thursday night that he always felt he would be vindicated. "I didn't want to be part of it. I wasn't part of it, and I had tried to stop it," he said. Early on, the case took on a life of its own with controversial school rulings, reversals and the parents' lawsuits to restore their sons to the football team. It became a mainstay of local talk radio, tarnishing --- at least temporarily --- the reputation of east Cobb and its highest-performing high school. After a gradual decline in the furor, the case abruptly came to a head this week. Through it all, the Errico family had maintained a public silence. They broke that silence this week in an interview with the Marietta Daily Journal when they gave a detailed account of what their son said happened Aug. 12. Errico's family said Newsome was solely responsible for stealing the vehicle and destroying mailboxes. And on Tuesday, a frustrated district attorney personally went to Walton during school hours and served four subpoenas to students who "didn't want to talk to us or the grand jury," Cobb police spokesman Brody Staud said. By Thursday morning, the four students were telling a grand jury what they knew. Errico told the Journal-Constitution that he had been at a sleepover party with several teens when Newsome began "badgering" him to take him to pick up a car. Errico said he drove Newsome to a church parking lot about 3 a.m., where Newsome picked up a Chevy Suburban with a trailer attached. Errico said he did not know the vehicle was stolen. "I was scared for him because --- if you could have seen the way the trailer was swinging and the way the car was sliding --- I didn't know what he was going to do," Errico said. He said he saw Newsome pull onto Bishop Lake Road and watched in shock as the trailer smashed into mailbox after mailbox. Errico said he followed him back to the party. "I told him to put the car back, you know," he said. "I thought he was going to." He said Newsome took one more mailbox-bashing run along the road before ditching the Suburban in the mud beside the Chattahoochee River. Ever since the boys' arrest, the Erricos began working behind the scenes trying to clear their son. They pleaded with parents of other students who were at the party, urging their children to come forward. People were afraid, especially when the school board got involved, Jim Errico said. "Football is so big here, and nobody wanted to take the chance of being thrown off the team," Jim Errico said. On Oct. 3, the parents took Vincent to the police, who questioned him for more than two hours. All the while, Jim and Maryann Errico --- as they were being cast by many as the quintessential bad parents --- were grilling the boy at home, having him go over what happened that night, again and again. Despite the abuse the Errico family was taking on talk radio and in the court of public opinion, the parents stood by their son, even to the point of trying to get him back on the football team. "We thought the presumption of guilt was overriding the presumption of innocence," said his mother. "I knew in my heart of hearts that eventually my son would be found to be clear. "But how does he get back those eight weeks? We have to restore this child's reputation and dignity. He has been harassed in banks. He has been harassed at gas stations. We have received hate mail. No one ever presumed that he would be innocent." THE DECISION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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