Advertisement

Court Hears 'Game' Incidents

James K. Herms was arraigned yesterday for violating the trespass order against him when he walked into the athletic complex on Nov. 20.

Catalano said senior-level officials at the University requested Herms’ trespass warning last fall after alleged inappropriate behavior with undergraduate females.

Herms founded the Student-Alumni Committee on Institutional Security Policy, a non-profit campus security consulting firm that has been critical of HUPD in the past.

Herms claimed the football team left complimentary tickets for him at the Murr Center, which he planned to give to two of his employees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

But Herms admitted his intention in coming to The Game was not only to catch a glimpse of the Harvard-Yale rivalry and attend the tailgate, but also to recruit fresh-faced Elis for his group.

Advertisement

“I was handing out flyers at the tailgate,” Herms said. A police officer recognized him there. “He said to me, ‘Is there anything you can say so that I don’t have to arrest you?’”

Because Herms said he told the officer he was just about to leave, the officer did not arrest him. Herms asserted yesterday he has no moral obligation to follow a trespass order he considers to be unethical.

“Mr. Herms’s position, as is mine, is that Harvard seems to be enforcing a trespassing order which we believe has no validity,” said Nadler, who is also Herms’s attorney.

“This has nothing to do with Mr. Herms’s age—it has everything to do with his behavior,” said Catalano. A pre-trial hearing for Herms is set for Jan. 4.

—Staff writer Robin M. Peguero can be reached at peguero@fas.harvard.edu.

Advertisement