LEWISTON — Androscoggin County District Attorney Neil McLean said his office will not pursue criminal charges against any members of the Lisbon High School football team following an investigation into hazing allegations.

Androscoggin County District Attorney Neil McLean.

“Much of what was disclosed was self-described by involved juveniles as ‘horseplay,’ ‘goofing around,’ and the incidents all involved voluntary participation,” McLean said in a written statement Tuesday.

The prosecutor’s description is at odds with conclusions made by the Portland law firm Drummond Woodsum, which was hired to conduct an independent investigation. A report released last month found a “culture of hazing and roughhousing” among football team members.

That included incidents of players whipping one another with leather belts, at least once until bruising occurred; at least one incident of a freshman student being put headfirst into a trash can; and multiple instances of players being trapped behind a chain-link door and poked with brooms by upperclassmen.

“It is clear that the players universally wanted to be seen as being unfazed. … Although they said they were willing participants, they obviously did not want adults to find out about these activities,” the law firm’s report stated.

Police and school officials conducted two separate investigations, and it wasn’t clear if they focused on all of the same incidents or if there were different off-campus incidents that were reviewed only by police. McLean did not return a voicemail seeking clarity.

At a Lisbon School Committee meeting Monday evening, Athletic Director Chris Spaulding said his department has begun implementing some changes meant to deter future incidents, including more supervision.

The reports of hazing came to the district attorney’s attention after Lisbon High School’s resource officer received a report of one student pushing another student around at the school and police met with students on Oct. 2. During that meeting, a number of additional complaints involving a number of other students were mentioned, all tied to something that happened off campus Aug. 24.

There is no Maine statute that addresses hazing, and while that term has been used publicly to describe incidents at the school and off campus in recent months, the district attorney had to consider whether the behaviors that had been reported fall under other existing criminal statutes and whether those had been violated, McLean explained in a written statement.

Two days after the meeting with the school resource officer, Lisbon forfeited a football game against Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, and less than a week later school administrators removed seven players from the football team and suspended all football activities.

At the time, Richard Green, superintendent of Lisbon Schools, said the decision to remove the players stemmed from the school’s internal investigation of an alleged on-campus hazing incident.

As the investigation into the hazing allegations unfolded, Lisbon ended up forfeiting all of its remaining scheduled football games.

During the Drummond Woodsum investigation, investigators found “that hazing occurred among the Lisbon High School football team this season and possibly prior seasons.”

Attorneys Tom Trenholm and Kelsey Cromie, who authored the report, interviewed 40 students between Oct. 15-23. They requested to speak with every player on the roster since the start of the 2024 season.

Many of the players resisted providing specific details, and some looked visibly nervous during the interview, the lawyers said. They added that teachers overheard players telling their teammates not to share details during their interviews.

“Some players told us they were told to ‘not say anything’ about what happened,” the report said. “Although they would not specify who said that to them, our impression was that this came from other players.”

Players told investigators they never reported these incidents to any coach or administrator, and they attempted to classify them as typical “horseplay,” according to the report.

That’s the same word McLean used in his statement Tuesday. He explained that after all of the interviews were complete, and after reviewing all of the evidence collected by the Lisbon Police Department, there wasn’t enough to support criminal charges against anyone involved.

Because the case involved multiple juveniles, officials were “restricted by law as to what can be disclosed or discussed publicly regarding the details of the investigation,” McLean said.

McLean did share that his office felt it was “imperative” that the students and their families were heard.

“We sat down with them multiple times to ensure they had every opportunity to explain what occurred, who was involved, and what was the effect,” he said.

Lisbon Police Chief Ryan McGee said his department has been in “constant communication” with the district attorney’s office on this case. Although he, too, declined to discuss specifics, McGee said he respects the decision not to bring charges.

“We appreciate the DA’s office doing a thorough review. It’s important that everyone is heard,” McGee said.

At Monday’s Lisbon School Committee meeting, members discussed the Drummond Woodsum report that was released last month. Spaulding, the athletic director, told members that his department is taking steps outlined in the report to prevent future hazing, including limiting access to locker rooms before practice.

“We’re reinforcing supervision at all times in the locker rooms, we’ve bolted down the trash cans … and we’re (pursuing) hazing prevention courses for all coaches,” Spaulding said, adding that his department is also looking into such courses for student-athletes.

Football coach Chris Kates said the locker room should be open for only 15 minutes in the morning for players to drop off personal belongings and 30 minutes before scheduled practices.

Kates said the doors simply have to be kept closed until just before practice and supervision needs to be improved. When school gets out around 3 p.m. and practice doesn’t start for another hour and a half, it can be difficult for the team’s eight coaches to keep tabs on their 50 student-athletes, he said.

Three anti-hazing organizations have reached out to Spaulding to offer assistance in navigating next steps for prevention, he said.

Neither committee Chairperson Margaret Galligan-Schmoll nor Vice Chairman Kim Labbe-Poisson responded Tuesday to a voice message to discuss the report’s findings or the district attorney’s decision.

Sun Journal Staff Writers Joe Charpentier and Haley Jones contributed to this story