SUCCESS For Innocent Samuel Goetz. Expulsion Removed From His Transcript.
A former Student Government leader who was kicked out of school in May 2017 for allegedly assaulting a female student in his dorm room has gotten the expulsion removed from his record. Instead, the USF St. Petersburg record of Samuel Goetz will show that he was suspended, effective December 2017, with what the university calls “an ongoing restriction from access to the University” thereafter. The change from expulsion to suspension, hammered out in negotiations between attorneys for Goetz and the university, is a victory for Goetz. He was elected vice president of Student Government two months before his expulsion, but he has maintained in legal documents that he did not want to return to the university. He just wanted to remove the blot of expulsion from his record.
The turnaround in the Goetz case began in December, when three Pinellas County circuit judges ruled that Goetz’s rights of due process were denied by both the university’s student conduct board and Dean of Students Jacob Diaz. Reversing their own June 12, 2018, ruling, the judges said the board and the dean relied on a summary of an investigative report – “the only document on which USF relied in presenting its case” – in making their decisions.
“Although I am not looking to ever re-enroll at USF, an expulsion will effectively end my journey anywhere else,” he said. “I will lose all opportunities to obtain a good education as well as to pursue my dream of going to law school.” Samuel Goetz
crowsneststpete– Staff
