Saturday, February 14, 1998 EX-CADET'S FAMILY WON'T 'LET CASE LIE' THEY SEEK CHARGES IN VMI INQUIRY By MATT CHITTUM ROANOKE TIMES State police will assist the commonwealth's attorney in investigating the alleged beatings.  The Rockbridge County commonwealth's attorney and the state police are investigating the alleged beating of a former Virginia Military Institute freshman, and the ex-cadet's family said they will obtain assault warrants in the case regardless of the findings. "No way are we going to let this lie," said Denise Wade, stepmother of George Wade Jr., the former "rat." The Wades met with Commonwealth's Attorney Gordon Saunders and two state police investigators Thursday afternoon in Lexington, Saunders said. Wade said her son is prepared to go to the magistrate and get assault warrants against the three seniors he says beat him and five other rats with a belt and a coat hanger repeatedly during several weeks before Thanksgiving. But Saunders and the state police told the Wades to let them handle the matter. "We're once again going to entrust to public officials this investigation," Denise Wade said. "This is scary to us, because we don't know where the land mines are." Saunders said the assistance of state police is needed because his office doesn't have an investigator to interview those involved in the case. "I needed someone to come do the footwork for me," he said. The Wades are seeking the charges after VMI declined to pursue hazing charges against the three seniors. Under Virginia law, Saunders said, a charge of hazing must originate with the college. Both a cadet panel and the school administration investigated the alleged beatings, the school has said. But VMI declined to pursue hazing charges because the law specifies mistreatment resulting in "bodily harm." When a campus doctor examined Wade, he found no injury. Wade said he had welts, but they had healed before the examination. He left VMI at Thanksgiving. The other five rats remain at the college, according to VMI. The three seniors were suspended last week for the rest of the school year. The school has not named the cadets, but other sources identified them as John Gonzalez, a track team captain from Mechanicsville, Brett McGinley, a member of the honor court from Carlisle, Pa., and Charles Travers "Buck" Clemons of Richmond. A fourth, unidentified, cadet has been confined to barracks. No charges have been filed against the cadets, and no time frame has been given for the investigation. VMI spokesman Mike Strickler said the school will cooperate with the investigation. The Wades also have hired an attorney and plan to sue the individual cadets, but not VMI, Denise Wade said. "Our mission is to find justice for our son," she said, "and to find some closure to this that will provide some safety to other people that go there."