Grand jury will hear cases of six Kentucky football players charged with burglary
Six University of Kentucky football players charged with burglary in Fayette County had their cases waived to a grand jury on Wednesday.
R.J. Adams, JuTahn McClain, Andru Phillips, Earnest Sanders, Vito Tisdale and Joel Williams all appeared in Fayette District Court for preliminary hearings on Wednesday. Judge Bruce T. Bell granted a request by their attorneys to waive those hearings to a grand jury.
The detective who wrote the criminal summons for each player was present in the court room. Attorneys representing the players all declined comment.
No date was set for the grand jury proceeding, which will be closed to the public. Prosecutors will present the case to a grand jury, which does not judge innocence or guilt; a grand jury will be presented with evidence to determine whether charges should be dismissed or an indictment should be returned. Nine of 12 jurors must be in agreement to return an indictment.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn said there is not a deadline for felony cases to be presented to a grand jury in Kentucky, but her office always tries to present cases within 60 days.
All six players last Thursday were charged with first degree burglary stemming from a March 6 party hosted at a private residence by Alpha Sigma Phi, a campus fraternity. Tisdale, who is on probation for marijuana possession in Warren County, also was charged with first degree wanton endangerment.
According to court records obtained by the Herald-Leader, a “physical altercation with multiple occupants of the residence” occurred during the party, resulting in “physical injuries” for some people present. The types and severity of injuries, and how many people were injured, have not been disclosed by police. Police have also not commented about what caused the incident to start.
Alpha Sigma Phi is on probation through April 21, 2022, due to “various violations” that occurred during the March 6 house party.
UK football head coach Mark Stoops on Saturday said that the six players were withheld from team activities for 11 weeks while the university conducted a student conduct review of the incident. They were again suspended from activities following Thursday’s charges.
“I’m not sure when they’ll be back,” Stoops said Saturday. “There’s a process. The legal process needs to play out. We need to see in this discovery if there’s something that we didn’t know about. We don’t have all that information and their attorneys don’t have all that information yet. When they receive that info and we get the discovery, we’ll make decisions from there. … But they deserve an opportunity to defend themselves, and we’ll let that process play out.”
Kentucky is in the final week of its fall-camp period. The team’s season opener against Louisiana Monroe is scheduled for a noon kickoff on Sept. 4.
This story was originally published August 25, 2021 at 11:24 AM.
CORRECTION: There is no 60-day deadline for prosecutors to present these cases to a Fayette County grand jury. This information was incorrect in a previous version of this story.
