It's been quiet since charges were announced against several students who were served with juvenile complaints in early January by the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office for their alleged roles in hazing inside the Wall High School football locker room.

We don't know how many students were involved in the juvenile complaints, just that the complaints charged an unspecified amount of individuals with hazing, attempted criminal sexual contact, criminal sexual contact, false imprisonment, and harassment, but not for sexual assault.

Many people have questions about what exactly happened, who was involved, where it occurred, when did it happen, and so on.

Many outside of the MCPO, Wall Township Police, and the Court, still have those questions but you shouldn't expect any answers soon, or ever, and there are a few reasons why the ending to this story will remain a mystery.

Former Monmouth County Prosecutor Chris Gramiccioni, and former Superior Court Judge as well as Federal/State Prosecutor Deb Gramiccioni, both now attorneys in a law firm, joined 'Shore Time with Vin and Dave' on Sunday morning, a new weekly show on 94.3ThePoint and 105.7TheHawk, to discuss this case and other legal matters.

Whether it's the Wall High School case specifically or others like it, juvenile cases are handled differently and with a certain level of protection and care.

"The sanctity of the juvenile justice system is paramount in all of these cases, and the idea is whenever there are minors involved, we all have a collective interest to protect them and protect their identities so there is the ability for the system to allow rehabilitation, which the benchmark is rehabilitation, especially in the state of New Jersey," Chris Gramiccioni tells Townsquare Media. "But that said, investigators and prosecutors have a sworn obligation to sort out allegations that were made.

We're not going to a lot of what they adduced, we're not going to get to see the findings, or the results, or what happens with the children that were charged, we don't even know how many children were charged. 

So, it's kind of like standing in the dark guessing, but the risk -- what I've with that, that confidentiality that we wholeheartedly support -- so much has been sensationalized and it leaves so much to the imagination, that we have genuine concerns that in the public, they think it is something that is potentially is not what it seems."

Get our free mobile app

It could be a harmful, wrong game to play with guessing and speculating what happened without knowing the facts and wrongfully judging students or the program as a whole.

There were videos reportedly taken of what allegedly occurred inside the locker room, but those were not made public, and the MCPO and investigating team were able to review them as part of the probe into reported hazing.

It takes time to review those videos as well to determine, in part, what's real and what's missing, and that's along with the other evidence in the case to determine what did or didn't happen.

"I don't want to comment on the actual evidence, what we've seen, what haven't yet seen, but I want to take a step back and dovetail off of something Chris said -- confidentiality is key, it's precisely what unfortunately has been missing a little bit in this investigation by virtue of the public outcry," Deb Gramiccioni tells Townsquare Media. "As a former Juvenile Judge, confidentiality is absolutely paramount. It would not be, I think appropriate for anybody to comment on the specific individuals, but also, we're not going to comment on the evidence, except to say, that, to Chris' point, not everything is how it has been sensationalized in the press and the worry for someone like me and Chris -- I mean, this hits close to home, we have three kids, we raised them in Wall Township -- what hits close to home is that there is an inability to defend yourself in the press by virtue of that confidentiality when you don't want to out somebodies identity, it puts these kids in a really difficult position as to how to defend themselves."

Listen to Chris and Deb Gramiccioni here on 'Shore Time with Vin and Dave'. The article continues below audio.

Public perception has taken on a life of its own as more people take to social media to play judge and jury on everything they hear, sometimes judging guilty until proven innocent.

This is in 2021-22.

Back in March of 2006, social media certainly wasn't what it is now, but still, three young men on the Duke University Men's Lacrosse Team were accused of rape at an off-campus party, the head coach resigned, and the team's season was canceled.

Then, about a year later, those same three accused had charges dropped because they were innocent, and in fact, the attack never occurred, according to a New York Times report on the story in April of 2007.

Those men, that team had their world turned upside down over something that wasn't true.

One of the lessons learned, on the public perception front, is to proceed with caution until you know all the facts, and even then, don't judge.

The Duke case involved individuals over the age of 18, which is why their names came out.

The Wall High School case involves juveniles, which is why so much is so being released for the reasons Chris and Deb mentioned.

Both had an op-ed published in the Asbury Park Press back in November of 2021, asking for patience and pleading for people not to rush to judgement.

With regard to the Wall High School case, there is much to understand, even now.

"When I had the prosecutor job for the last 10-years, balancing the confidentiality mandates while also responding to the appetite that the public has in finding out what's happening in their communities, it's a difficult line to walk," Chris Gramiccioni said. "In this case, so much has been sensationalized. I liken it to the old Alfred Hitchcock, who was a Director...who relied on the imagination instead of actually showing something that happened. He actually left it to the imagination and it's candid to what happened here (the Wall case), without understanding precisely what happened with the details, which the public is not entitled to because of the juvenile protections, so much is left to the imagination and that potentially goes wild. That was our message when we came out in the media, and the Asbury Park Press, or otherwise, is keep your powder dry, let the system play itself out. That apparently has done so here, but the truth is, and the sad truth is, the public will never know what the resolution out of those things are, and the school district, but more importantly, the kids at school are going to have to live with the ramifications of this and that's the sad tragedy of it all, is because there's 52-people on a football team, I don't even know how many have been charged with whatever 4th-degree crimes have been outlined, but there's 52-players and they've all kind of been painted with a broad brush, and even more so than the football team, Wall Athletics, I think is taking a beating over all this."

Listen to Chris and Deb Gramiccioni here on 'Shore Time with Vin and Dave'. The article continues below audio.

The most heinous New Jersey murders that shook our communities

More From 94.3 The Point