A Pennsylvania football program has been thrown into upheaval after prosecutors filed criminal charges against ten people tied to the team, four of them coaches, following a grand jury’s monthslong look into two separate locker room incidents that ultimately led the school to scrap the entire season.

According to the New York Post, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office announced the charges Wednesday following a months-long grand jury inquiry into two incidents involving a then-15-year-old sophomore on the Cheltenham High School football team. Investigators say the first assault happened on August 15, 2025, and was recorded on a phone by two other players before circulating among students that fall. A second assault followed on September 3.

Prosecutors allege that during the incidents, several teammates held the victim down while he was struck and, at another point, had a broomstick pressed against his buttocks over his shorts. According to the teen’s own account to investigators, he tried to shield his head by tucking into a defensive position while blows landed on him, including some from teammates still wearing their cleats.

Two players who were 18 at the time, identified in charging documents as Isaiah Simpson and Josiah Peeler, are being prosecuted as adults. Simpson faces charges including conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, simple assault, and reckless endangerment, while Peeler faces a charge of false swearing. Four additional players who were minors at the time also face charges, though their identities have not been released.

None of the four coaches now facing charges were physically in the room for either incident. Prosecutors say their involvement began only after the fact, once word of the second assault reached them. It started with a car ride home. Ralph Burnley, 60, a volunteer coach, was driving the boy after practice when the teen mentioned he’d been “jumped” and was hurt.

Burnley then called head coach Terence Tolbert, 55, kicking off a string of messages among the coaching staff that culminated in a group call with the boy. On that call, prosecutors allege, Tolbert and associate head coach Darian “DJ” McFadden, 42, told the teen they would “take care of it,” and asked him not to tell his mother.

Assistant coach Benjamin Johnson III, 45, was also involved in that response, according to prosecutors, who allege the group handled the situation internally with the team instead of looping in the boy’s mother or school administrators, reportedly out of worry about what it could mean for the program’s standing. All four coaches now face charges of endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child.

The boy’s mother learned of the second assault days later from a relative who had heard about it from other parents. She took her son to urgent care, where he was diagnosed with a contusion to his penis, according to prosecutors. Cheltenham officials were separately alerted through Pennsylvania’s Safe2Say Something anonymous tip line, prompting the district to suspend the season on October 17, 2025, before canceling it entirely.

District Attorney Kevin Steele said at a press conference that the investigation had been slowed by witnesses reluctant to come forward. “These assaults on a football player were not the typical goofing around by teammates. These were crimes,” he said, according to multiple outlets covering the announcement.

Cheltenham School District Superintendent Brian Scriven said in a statement that the district’s “thoughts remain with the victim and their family,” adding that no student should experience violence or fear at school. A similar case unfolded recently when a Connecticut wrestling coach was charged with assault over his response to an incident involving one of his athletes.

None of the ten defendants have entered a plea, and arrangements are still being made for them to turn themselves in to police.

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