4 charged in CSU abduction case

Four Charleston Southern University student-athletes were ordered held on high-dollar bail amounts Tuesday in the armed robbery and kidnapping of one student and a campus visitor.

One of the athletes was identified as a starting running back on the Buccaneers football team, while the others said they had been members of the team.

All have been suspended from school. The four were arrested by North Charleston police Monday night.

The men are:

--Zackery Hillery, 20, of Sanford, Fla., a freshman who said he was on a football scholarship.

--Tyrone Lattimore, 19, of Maple Heights, Ohio, a sophomore transfer from Miami of Ohio. He was identified in court as a starting running back.

--Ronald Jay Baldner, 19, of Homosassa, Fla., a freshman identified as being on a track scholarship but who also was on the football team.

--Sam Baptiste, 20, of Naples, Fla., a freshman on a football scholarship.

Magistrate Priscilla Baldwin set bail at $200,000 each for Hillery, Lattimore and Baldner. Bail for Baptiste was set at $400,000, apparently because he has an unspecified criminal history in Florida. Local authorities refused to talk about the Florida charge.

All had listed the private school's campus in North Charleston as their local address.

The four are accused of a robbery and abduction that began Nov. 11 in the parking lot outside the men's dorms.

A female student, 18, and a male acquaintance, 18, reported that they were in a car about 7:45 p.m. waiting for the owner to get out of class when two men approached. One wore a ski mask and the other brandished a handgun.

The robbers got in the back seat, pointed the gun to the back of the male's head and told him to drive.

The men made him drive to the nearby Atlantic Palms apartments, where the robbers took the $30 or so in cash they had, then ran away. No one was injured.

Affidavits suggest that the intended target of the robbery was the registered owner of the car, who was known to one of the men.

After the bond hearing, the female victim, a freshman from Orangeburg, said she recognized one of the men from an art-appreciation class they shared. She said she had seen the others around campus.

She said only two men appeared to be involved in the robbery, and that she did not know two others were also apparently involved. She described herself as "paranoid" since the robbery.

"I'm definitely startled all the time," she said outside of Charleston County Magistrate Court.

Earlier Monday, CSU said the four accused student-athletes were involved in the school's football program, though only one was an active member of the team at the time of the robbery. They have been suspended pending the outcome of the case, Doug Dickerson, director of public relations, said in a press release.

Lattimore, a running back, has played in recent games. An online roster lists Hillery as a defensive lineman and Baldner as a wide receiver. Baptiste is not mentioned. The press release also includes statements from the school's head football coach and president.

"We are disappointed to hear of the charges brought against these young men," coach Jay Mills said. "Our athletics program at CSU continues its commitment to the academic, athletic, spiritual and character development of our student-athletes."

CSU President Jairy C. Hunter expressed regret that students might have chosen "a path not representative of the Christian values at the university."

After last week's incident, the university was placed on lockdown as a precaution. An alert system sent out nearly 6,000 automated phone calls, e-mails and text messages to students, parents and faculty.

Later that week, the school announced additional security measures, including extra armed officers and evening foot patrols. The school has promised checkpoints at the entrance to the campus at night and more surveillance cameras.

About 3,330 students are enrolled and nearly 1,100 of them live on the 300-acre campus on U.S. Highway 78.

This wasn't the first violent episode at the school this fall. A student was robbed at gunpoint in his West Russell dormitory room Oct. 6. One student and a former student were arrested and charged in that case.

The female victim of the Nov. 11 incident said the events are taking their toll and that it's "been crazy this year."