Posted Tuesday, Dec. 20, 1:54 a.m. A D.C. Superior Court grand jury will continue to review into 2006 the case of a GW student who allegedly struck and kicked another student in the head since he was not indicted by his Dec. 9 status hearing.
Chad Dauman, a junior who transferred from State University of New York-Albany this fall, was arrested Oct. 11 and is facing indictment for aggravated assault, a felony that holds a maximum sentence of 10 years. The grand jury has up to 10 months after the arrest to indict Dauman.
Dauman allegedly got into a fight with GW senior Akeem Samuels about football outside of a G Street nightclub in the early hours of Oct. 9, according to a police report.
Dauman’s next status hearing is scheduled for Feb. 17, and if the grand jury indicts him by that date, the hearing will serve as an arraignment, in which the defendant will be advised of his charges and asked to plead guilty or not guilty. Channing Phillips, spokesman for the U.S. District Attorney’s Office for D.C., said the timeline of Dauman’s case is standard.
Dauman has been under the supervisory custody of his father since Oct. 19 and is living in Plainview, N.Y., with an electronically monitored 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew. He has completed a three-week alcohol and substance abuse program in New York and enrolled in an addiction and counseling program in November, court documents said. The judge decided to maintain the current release conditions for Dauman until February, according to court documents.
Dauman’s lawyer, Thomas A. Key, would not comment on the case, citing client confidentiality. Dauman is claiming he hit Samuels in self-defense.
According to the court documents, Dauman’s criminal record shows that he was also arrested on March 12, 2005, in Albany for assault with intent to cause physical injury with a weapon and criminal possession of a weapon with intent to use. The record said the case was waived to an Albany City Court grand jury. It is unclear whether the arrest resulted in conviction.
Samuels, the senior left unconscious after the fight, withdrew from GW following the incident and is currently residing at home. He said in an e-mail last week that he will be attending GW full-time in the spring and he is “recovering quite fine,” but still has to undergo surgery on his neck. He declined to go into specifics of the case, citing pending litigation. He said he does not remember the incident.
“I suffered a period of amnesia during the accident, so I truly don’t know what happened that night and in particular the incident,” Samuels wrote.
Samuels was in the intensive care unit of GW Hospital for nine days and remained in a regular room for about three additional days after the fight. He has sustained serious injuries to his shoulder, throat, jaw and brain, he said. He said he did not know Dauman before the night of the incident.
Tara Woolfson, director of Student Judicial Services, declined to say whether Dauman was suspended or faced other disciplinary action after his judicial hearing in October. As of last week, Dauman was not enrolled at GW, said an employee of the GW Registrar’s Office who requested anonymity. The GW online directory no longer lists an e-mail for Dauman.
