A baseball coach at a south Philadelphia Catholic high school took a 14-year-old student to a local hotel and gave him beer, other alcohol, and pharmaceutical drugs, Philadelphia Police said Tuesday.
Louis Spadaccini, a baseball coach at Sts. Neumann and Goretti High School, met a 14-year-old freshman at about 4:45 p.m. Sunday and brought him to the Holiday Inn on the 900 block of Packer Avenue in South Philly, according to Philadelphia Police Capt. John Darby.
At the hotel, Spadaccini gave the young teen alcohol and prescription drugs, Darby says.
While the 37-year-old coach from Iseminger Avenue in South Philly was giving the boy drugs and alcohol at the hotel, the boy’s parents were trying to get in touch with their son by way of texting and calling.
When the boy finally came back home, he was visibly very intoxicated, Darby says.
“This was a contact that had begun in a short time that included communication back and forth between the student -- a new student at the school -- and the coach,” Darby said. “Understand that the association is baseball. In fact we know that earlier in the day the two had plans to meet…for practice…which was not uncommon, but obviously, this went way beyond that.”
The boy’s parents brought him to Methodist Hospital and he was then transferred to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where he was treated and released, Darby says.
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Philadelphia Police are concerned that similar incidents have occurred with Spadaccini and other students or youths in his neighborhood. Anyone with information is asked to call the Special Victims Unit at 215.685.3251.
Spadaccini was arrested on charges of child endangerment, corrupting the morals of a minor, simple assault, furnishing alcohol to a minor, interference with the custody of a child, luring a child, and distributing narcotics.
He was released on bail on Tuesday afternoon.
Spadaccini has no prior criminal record. No one answered the door at his house Tuesday evening.
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