The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office and Cheltenham Township Acting Police Chief Richard Schaffer have announced charges against numerous Cheltenham High School football players and coaches.
Yesterday, The Philadelphia Inquirer provided additional details regarding the cancellation of Cheltenham High School’s varsity and junior varsity football programs in May following an external hazing investigation. According to their coverage, an anonymous parent said that her then-15-year-old son told her that his teammates had used a broomstick during an assault inside the locker room after a practice in August 2025. The student was assaulted again in September, during which he was “thrown on the floor and punched and kicked in the head and testicles”, The Inquirer wrote.
According to today’s announcement, Head coach Terence Tolbert, associate head coach Darian McFadden, assistant coach Benjamin Johnson III, and volunteer coach Ralph Burney, have been charged with endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy.
District Attorney Kevin Steele said the coaches are criminally liable for the assaults because they encouraged the victim not to tell his parents after learning of the incidents.
Players Isaiah Simpson, and Josiah Peeler, both 18, have been charged as adults. Simpson is charged with conspiracy to aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and related crimes. Peeler is charged with false swearing for being untruthful to police.
Four additional players allegedly involved in the assaults have been charged as juveniles.
“These assaults on a football player were not the typical goofing around by teammates. These were crimes,” DA Steele said in a press release. “Numerous witnesses, many reluctant to share what they saw and knew, testified about what occurred in the Cheltenham High School locker room on these two occasions and testified about actions taken by some of the football coaches after the assaults. After carefully considering all of the testimony and evidence, including reviewing the recovered videos of one of the assaults, the Grand Jury recommended charges against the four juveniles, two other football players and four coaches.”
It is not yet clear when the coaches and players will appear in court or what specific disciplinary actions the school may take beyond canceling the season. More details can be found here.
FOX29’s video coverage of the announcement is below:
Suspected hazing was first made public in October 2025 when the district received anonymous allegations described as “deeply concerning and, if substantiated, wholly inconsistent with our values as a district.” Cheltenham school officials immediately reported the information to ChildLine services and the Cheltenham Township Police Department “and followed all legally mandated procedures to investigate the alleged incident, which we believed to be isolated.”
Three days later, Dr. Scriven announced that the duration of the 2025 Cheltenham High School football season was cancelled.
The external investigation confirmed that reported student-on-student assault “did, in fact, take place in the football locker room on September 3, 2025, and that approximately 19 students who witnessed the assault made no attempt to stop the event, and several participated freely in it. Several students also filmed the assault,” Dr. Scriven wrote.
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Screengrab: FOX29