An ex-West Scranton High School football player who once urged local teens to make good choices turned himself in Tuesday to face charges he beat up a man at a weekend party.
Authorities took Chase J. Passeri to prison after he couldn’t post $25,000 bail on charges of aggravated and simple assault, harassment and disorderly conduct. Clarks Summit police withdrew their original arrest warrant and obtained one that added the aggravated assault charge, which means a potential 10 years in prison, twice the simple assault maximum.
Passeri’s victim, Nicholas Thompson, suffered fractured ribs and facial bones and a punctured lung, and was hospitalized, police said.
Patrolman Kevin Yetkowskas charged Passeri, 29, of Jermyn, Lackawanna County with beating up Thompson early Sunday morning at a party at a Fairview Road, Clarks Green, home.
Called to the scene at 8:17 a.m., Yetkowskas found lots of blood on the sidewalk and stairs to the porch where Thompson waited. Thompson had dried blood on his pants, shoes and shirt.
They went inside where the officer found dried blood all over the first floor. Thompson said he and his girlfriend, Staci Wirth, had friends over and “they were all drinking,” Yeskowskas wrote in an arrest affidavit.
About 3 a.m., Wirth, awakened from sleep, found Passeri going through Thompson’s dresser drawers. Passeri took money. Wirth asked Passeri what he was doing.
“Leaving a tip,” Passeri replied, according to the affidavit.
Wirth called Thompson to come upstairs. He and Passeri began arguing and went downstairs where Thompson told police “he remembers Passeri hitting him and … waking up on the floor bleeding from his mouth.”
Wirth said she heard a bang, came downstairs and found Thompson on the ground. She walked toward Passeri to get Thompson and Passeri pushed her to the ground, according to police.
Wirth and Thompson waited hours to call police. They told police “they didn’t think things were that bad until they began to speak to family about what had happened.”
It’s the second time a party led to criminal charges against Passeri.
In December 2008, when he was still in high school, he and four friends left a party in West Scranton after drinking heavily and headed to the Abingtons for another party.
After a friend in another car passed him, Passeri drove after the car at high speeds. His car hit a ditch and flipped. The crash seriously injured his friends and nearly severed his right arm.
Passeri pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, drunken driving and recklessly endangering others. A judge sentenced him to six to 23 months in county prison and ordered him to speak to students about the dangers of drinking and driving.
When he showed photos of his injured arm to West Scranton in May 2014, some students looked away. Passeri told them he and his friends should have died because of his choice to drive fast and drunk.
“I don’t want to see anyone go through the situation I went through,” he told the students. “It’s important to make the right decision.”
