Four Cheltenham High School football coaches, six players charged in assaults on teammate

Four Cheltenham High School football coaches and six players have been charged in connection with two assaults in the school’s locker room that injured a 15-year-old player and led to the cancellation of two football seasons, Montgomery County prosecutors said Wednesday.

Head coach Terence Tolbert, 55; associate head coach Darian McFadden, 42; assistant coach Benjamin Johnson III, 45; and volunteer coach Ralph Burney, 60; have been charged with endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy. The coaches are no longer with the district.

Two football players, Isaiah Simpson, and Josiah Peeler, both 18, have been charged as adults — Simpson with conspiracy to aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and related crimes for participating in the assaults, and Peeler with false swearing for being untruthful to police.

The four other players who authorities say were involved in the assaults have been charged as juveniles, and prosecutors declined to provide additional information.

District Attorney Kevin Steele said the charges followed a grand jury investigation in which witnesses said multiple football players were present when a 15-year-old sophomore on the team was assaulted by teammates who used a broomstick to poke at his buttocks. The assaults happened in August and September of 2025, authorities said.

The coaches are criminally liable for the assaults, Steele said, because, while they were not present, they learned of the incidents and encouraged the victim not to tell his parents.

“The assaults on this victim were not typical goofing around by teammates, or horseplay, as some of the coaches in this case called it,“ Steele said at a news conference in Norristown Wednesday. ”They were crimes."

The charges come nearly a year after authorities say the victim was assaulted — twice — in the Cheltenham High School football locker room.

» READ MORE: He was assaulted by teammates in Cheltenham High’s locker room. Nearly a year later, his mom says he ‘can’t escape the situation.’

The incidents led the district to cancel last year’s football season in October, citing hazing allegations. In May, it announced the upcoming season would be canceled as well.

The assaults occurred Aug. 15 and Sept. 3, Steele said. He said video footage of the August incident showed several students restraining the victim, while another student poked at his legs and buttocks with a broomstick.

Players are laughing and yelling in the video, and “at least one player is chanting, ‘Broomstick him,’” Steele said.

Steele said investigators did not have a video of the Sept. 3 assault, but that multiple players, including Simpson, kicked and stomped the victim.

The teen reported that students were “trying to poke him in the butt with the broomstick,” and that they made contact with his buttock, Steele said. He said the assault broke up when buses arrived, and teammates left to get on them.

Burnley, one of the coaches, drove the victim home after practice, and he told the assistant coach he’d been jumped by teammates, the district attorney said.

Burnley then texted coaches in a group chat and called Tolbert, Steele said. McFadden and Tolbert then called the victim and “told him not to tell his mother about the incident because they would handle it,” Steele said.

He said the coaches knew what they were doing in not reporting the assault.

Burnley, the prosecutor said, texted that “‘this has to be handled and kept quiet. It’s just like hazing. I’m telling you if this gets out, it could put the whole team in jeopardy.”

Another coach responded, “‘If this gets out we are effed,’” Steele said.

The incident came to light four days later, when the teen’s mother said he told her he had been jumped by teammates and had pain in his genitals. She said she took her son to urgent care and texted the high school’s assistant principal, who called her that day.

The teen didn’t tell his mom that his teammates used a broomstick in the attack. He was embarrassed and reluctant to share that detail, the mother said in an interview with The Inquirer. She spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the identity of her son.

He had told her, the mother said, that teammates had tried “to mess with his manhood.”

She learned about the broomstick later in September when Cheltenham Township police called to tell her that someone had called Pennsylvania’s Safe2Say hotline to anonymously report that students had used a broomstick during the attack, according to the teen’s lawyers, Alan Yatvin and Gabrielle Turley.

Sometime in October, the district obtained a video that had been circulating in the community and depicted an attempted sexual assault of the student with a broomstick, the lawyers said.

Investigators initially believed that footage was from the Sept. 3 assault, the lawyers said. But this spring, they said, detectives determined that it was taken in August. The teen, who wasn’t shown the video until this spring, also identified it as being from August, revealing for the first time that he had been assaulted more than once, according to the lawyers.

Before that development, the school district said in January that an outside investigator had confirmed that a “student-on-student assault” had taken place in the locker room on Sept. 3. The assault was witnessed by nearly 20 students, according to the district, which did not provide details of the attack.

The district faulted inadequate supervision in the locker room, “a failure to prioritize student safety” by coaches and volunteers, and “a toxic and negative culture” within the football program.

Superintendent Brian Scriven said last week that a Title IX investigation, required by law when sexual assault or harassment is alleged, is ongoing. “Unfortunately, the district received extremely limited cooperation from students,” he said.

In April, the district approved separation agreements with Tolbert and McFadden. Officials say none of the coaches from last season is still affiliated with the district.

The victim, who switched to virtual school after being harassed by peers after the attacks, has continued to struggle, according to his mother. She said he avoids going outside because he fears being taunted about what happened.

This is a developing story and will be updated.