The UCSB freshman baseball player arrested Tuesday for making fake driver licenses in his residence hall has been suspended from the team until further notice.
UCSB baseball Head Coach Bob Brontsema suspended David Matthew Filipiak, of Laguna Hills, Calif., Wednesday after finding out about Filipiak’s arrest for manufacturing false identification cards and driver licenses. Brontsema said the athlete would be allowed to continue practice with the team, but he would not be allowed to participate in any games.
“I found out about it a half-hour before practice,” Brontsema said. “So I called him into the office and got his side of the story and listened to him and told him he would be suspended either indefinitely or temporarily, and then we would go from there.”
Brontsema said Filipiak’s actions reflected negatively on the baseball team’s reputation.
“You can get suspended for a lot of reasons on our team. Part of it is if you do things that are detrimental to our team or reputation,” he said.
In addition to being suspended from the team and possibly having charges filed against him by the Santa Barbara County District Attorney, Filipiak can face further penalties from the university. Although UCPD has not yet forwarded the case to UCSB, Filipiak can later face disciplinary action from the university when it receives the case.
Once the case is forwarded to UCSB, the Student-Faculty Committee on Student Conduct can choose whether to hear it or not.
“I think for a case like this, we would be likely to hear it,” said Brandon Brod, UCSB conduct educator and hate incident response coordinator for the Office of Student Life.
Brod said the committee is like a jury in that it can independently decide whether or not a student is guilty or innocent of the charges, and it can also mete out a range of punishments.
“[The punishment] can range from, at a bare minimum, just a formal warning or a probation to, on the other extreme, dismissal from the UC system or UCSB, and anything in between those two extremes, like suspension for one quarter or two quarters,” he said.
Brontsema said he would decide whether or not Filipiak is allowed to return to the team after the court rules on the case.
“We are really playing it by ear,” he said.
Filipiak declined to comment.
