Former Cal U. football player pleads no contest to aggravated assault
A former California University of Pennsylvania football player entered a no-contest plea Tuesday to the 2014 brutal off-campus beating of a man, and he was given credit for time served in Washington County jail.
But Corey Ford, 24, of Harrisburg, is headed to another prison to begin serving a sentence for seriously injuring a bicyclist in a crash more than two years ago in Washington, D.C.
Ford was one of six members of the football team charged in connection with the Oct. 30, 2014, aggravated assault of Lewis Campbell III, 30, of West Chester, who suffered brain trauma in the incident in front of Spuds restaurant, 227 Wood St., California.
Campbell spent eight days in Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, but recovered from his injuries. Assistant District Attorney Leslie Ridge said Campbell was notified of Tuesday’s court proceeding but he was unable to attend.
“He was aware of the plea offer and he was in agreement with it,” Ridge said after the hearing.
A plea negotiated between Ford’s attorneys, Phillip DiLucente and Blaine Jones, and the Washington County district attorney’s office resulted in Ford’s first-degree felony aggravated assault charge being lowered to a second-degree felony, which carries a maximum sentence of two years in jail.
Ford, incarcerated in Washington County jail since November 2014, already served half of his minimum sentence, so Judge Gary Gilman said he can be paroled to begin serving his sentence on the Washington, D.C., charges.
Ford entered his plea on the same morning testimony was scheduled for a nonjury trial, a proceeding which could have lasted two days. Instead, the plea hearing lasted a matter of minutes. A charge of reckless endangerment was dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
Because of the Washington, D.C., charge, Ford will be transported to Northeast Ohio Correctional Institution in Youngstown to serve a sentence for the traffic accident.
DiLucente said his client could be released from the Ohio facility within a year, to be followed by three years’ probation on the Washington County charges.
“This man has a very valuable football career, if possible,” he told the judge. He described Ford as “not only a good student but a great football player … well-loved and well-liked” and pointed out a number of people attended court as a show of support. Ford was a starting defensive back for the Vulcans.
“I don’t think there are going to be any further problems with Mr. Ford,” DiLucente predicted.
The traffic accident, DiLucente said, was a case of negligence rather than intent, and the District of Columbia judge, who could have imposed a harsher sentence, chose 36 months. Metropolitan police charged Ford with aggravated assault for striking bicyclist Simon Pineda with a vehicle in the opposite lane of a Georgetown street and leaving the scene on New Year’s Day 2014. The impact put the victim in a coma for at least two months, according to the police affidavit.
The nation’s capital does not have its own prisons but uses federal prisons.
The cases of four California co-defendants, all of whom are free on bond, are pending in Washington County Court: Rodney Gillin, 21, of Reading, Jonathan Barlow, 22, of Pittsburgh, D’Andre Dunkley, 20, of Philadelphia, and Shelby Wilkerson, 22, of Harrisburg.
Gilman dismissed charges against a sixth co-defendant, James Williamson, 22, of Parkville, Md., after video surveillance showed he did not participate in the attack, and Williamson late last year filed suit against the in federal court against the university and others.