Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/ Pubdate: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 Author: Charlie Goodyear, Chronicle Staff Writer CONCORD STUDENTS SENT HOME FROM EUROPE TRIP SUING SCHOOL Two students sent home from Europe last year after allegedly imbibing on a band trip are suing Concord High School, the Mount Diablo Unified School District, chaperones and other officials. The lawsuit, filed late Tuesday on behalf of students Keke Kaste and Jordan Stock, claims negligence, infliction of emotional distress, slander and libel. The teenagers and their families are asking unspecified exemplary and punitive damages. Last March, the two teenagers, then 14 and 15, traveled with the Concord High band on a weeklong tour of Germany and Austria. While in the medieval town of Rothenburg, Germany, Keke, Jordan and two other students stopped at a cafe and ordered a nonalcoholic ``Irish Cream Coffee,'' according to the lawsuit. A chaperone traveling with the band observed the students drinking and asked a waitress what she had served them. The waitress, who could not speak En glish, indicated she had served the teens an alcoholic Irish Coffee. That same night, both Keke and Jordan were separately ``interrogated'' by chaperones. School officials falsely told both teenagers that other students had admitted drinking alcohol, court papers contend. Chaperones told the rest of the touring musicians that Keke and Jordan had been caught drinking. Two days later, the teens were awakened, told to pack and put on a plane home from the Munich airport without supervision despite concerns from airline officials and local police that the students should not fly alone, the suit states. Four weeks later, a ``slanderous and libelous'' article describing the incident appeared in the school newspaper written by the son of one of the trip chaperones, according to the lawsuit. Parents involved in the school's band booster group have conducted ``a campaign of character assassination'' against Keke and admitted doing so to the girl's parents, court papers allege. School officials, including Concord High Principal Bonnie Warner, declined to comment yesterday, saying they had not yet seen the lawsuit. The teens' attorney, Dan Ryan, said his clients to this day are not sure what they drank. ``What occurred over there, it was ridiculous,'' Ryan said. ``It's reprehensible. These kids were isolated, put into a Star Chamber type of proceeding and then sent home alone. They're not sure to this day they ever had alcohol. And no one will know for sure because no testing was ever done.''