Will Scharf ’04, now a senior at Princeton University, was charged by the Princeton Borough Police on December 10, 2007 with two municipal counts of serving alcohol to minors and maintaining a nuisance. According to the Daily Princetonian, the charges stemmed from an incident at the university’s Charter Club, one of Princeton’s 10 eating clubs, on December 1, 2007. “I have entered pleas of not guilty for both of these, and believe myself to be entirely blameless,” Scharf, the former president of the Charter Club, wrote in an email to The Phillipian. He referred further inquiries to his lawyer, Rocco C. Cipparone, Jr., who was participating in a separate trial when The Phillipian attempted to contact him and was unavailable for comment prior to press time. According to the Daily Princetonian, each offense with which Scharf is charged carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison and a $1,000 fine. Said Cipparone, as quoted in the Daily Princetonian, “Nobody to my knowledge has said that Mr. Scharf served anyone beer that night, let alone anyone who [was] under 21.” The paper also reported, though, that Scharf is unlikely to be convicted. According to Lt. David Dudeck of the Princeton Borough Police as quoted in the Daily Princetonian, charges against an eating club are first brought against that club’s president, which in this case was Scharf. Dudeck said that legal action is usually then transferred to a club’s graduate board or the club itself. According to the Daily Princetonian, the borough has charged five eating club presidents with similar violations since 2006, and all charges were either dropped or transferred to the club itself. According to Dudeck as quoted in the Daily Princetonian, the incident at Charter involved an altercation between two female Princeton juniors. One student poured beer down another student’s back, and that student responded by striking the other student. Those students’ identities have not yet been released. An ensuing investigation by Princeton Borough detectives found that Charter Club was serving alcohol to minors, Dudeck said in the Daily Princetonian. Scharf is a familiar face to many on the Phillips Academy campus. While attending Andover, Scharf was a Blue Key Head and was co-head of Model United Nations. He also worked extensively on a biography of British Admiral Sir Max Kennedy Horton, who participated in both World Wars, as a summer Abbot research project. Scharf’s father, Michael Scharf ’60, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief of the steel company Niagara Corporation, is a longtime Addison Gallery supporter and donated $1 million to the Addison’s endowment in 2003.
