A Wilkes University football player charged with knocking a cellphone out of a reporter\u2019s hand during a brawl that erupted following the annual Mayor\u2019s Cup game in September has pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and been fined about $274, according to court records.<\/p>\n
Ryan Robert Opperman, a sophomore defensive back from Lewisburg, was accused of hitting the phone out of the hands of Citizens\u2019 Voice sports reporter Steve Bennett during the melee that broke out at the end of the game against King\u2019s College on the afternoon of Sept 6.<\/p>\n
Court records show Opperman pleaded guilty last week to a summary count of disorderly conduct in exchange for prosecutors withdrawing a second summary count of harassment against him.<\/p>\n
Magisterial District Judge James Tupper fined Opperman $273.75, according to court records.<\/p>\n
According to the charges, the confrontation took place during a fight that broke out at the end of the football game as the Colonels and Monarchs were preparing to shake hands at Wilkes\u2019 Schmidt Stadium in Edwardsville.<\/p>\n
The brawl initially broke out behind the King\u2019s bench before spilling out onto the field. Bennett, who was covering the 19-16 Wilkes victory, pulled out his phone to record the disturbance.<\/p>\n
Opperman then rushed toward Bennett and knocked away his phone, shouting, \u201cNo video.\u201d Opperman subsequently kicked the phone away to prevent Bennett from picking it up, according to the charges.<\/p>\n
When\u00a0Bennett later informed Opperman that he is a reporter for The Citizens\u2019 Voice, Opperman cursed and said he didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
Wilkes University previously announced an internal investigation into the brawl and incident involving Bennett, who has been with The Citizens\u2019 Voice since 1997.<\/p>\n
Spokeswoman Kelly Clisham did not immediately respond to an inquiry Monday morning about the status of that investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Wilkes University football player charged with knocking a cellphone out of a reporter\u2019s hand during a brawl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[46,182,803,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":{"0":"post-46384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-courts","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-luzerne-county","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-scranton","14":"tag-scranton-headlines","15":"tag-scranton-news","16":"tag-top-stories-stt"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}