A lawsuit filed in Orinda teen’s party death: too bad it had to get to this point

Marianne Payne, the mother of 16-year-old Joseph Loudon, has taken a step that isn’t surprising. It’s what many expected. She has filed a lawsuit against the teen-aged Orinda “hosts” of an unsupervised party where her son fatally collapsed died on May 23.


News reports say Payne filed a wrongful death suit earlier this month against her former neighbors on Hillcrest Drive, Alexandra and Patrick P.J. Gabrielli, their mother, Isabel Hamilton, and stepfather, Scott Hamilton. She also filed suit against another local youth alleged to have purchased alcohol for the party. She says the death of her son, a popular, athletic Miramonte High sophomore, was caused by the negligence on the part of the teenagers who provided the alcohol and of the Hamiltons, who were out of town when the party was held without their permission.

Payne evidently feels she needs to take this route. While Payne has not commented on the suit, I doubt she’s motivated by money. Given what she’s said in the past, she’s probably hoping that a suit will yield more answers to what happened to her son that night. She’s said before publicly that she didn’t feel like the official criminal and coroner’s investigations provided her with those answers. She believes that parents of some of the students at the party got their kids to “lawyer up” and refuse to take responsibility.

The cause of Joe’s death remains unknown, largely because of a series of missteps by police and confusion over a prescription drug found in Joe’s system during the autopsy. That drug was later revealed to have been injected to prepare his body for organ donation. The autopsy also found only a small amount of alcohol in his system; authorities believe the boy may have suffered from an undiagnosed heart ailment.

Perhaps this suit is Payne’s way of assigning blame and punishing the people she believes are responsible for her Joe's death—making them feel some of the bottomless pain of grief she’s living with.

Joe had stopped at the party that night, and was there less than two hours when he collapsed in a hallway in front of other guests. He was briefly revived, said he was okay, and helped into a bedroom to rest. But when left alone, Joe vomited and choked.

Sometime during all this, Orinda police officers came to the house following neighbors’ reports of noise. Officers were apparently a few feet away from where Joe was in distress, but were sent away by Alexandra Gabrielli, who said she would make sure to quiet things down.

After finding Joe, some partygoers tried to perform CPR on Joe and called 911. Friends of the Gabrielli family say it was PJ who tried to administer CPR, and it was Alexandra who said to call 911.

But it was too late. Joe was pronounced dead at Kaiser hospital in Walnut Creek.

P.J. and Alexandra Gabrielli were never criminally charged with causing Joe’s death. Last month, they pleaded no contest to charges of furnishing alcohol to minors. They were each ordered to serve 200 hours of community service and to pay a $1,000 fine.

People close to the Gabriellis said that the two siblings and their mother and stepfather were devastated by Joe's death. They also said the Gabrielli siblings made many efforts to express remorse to Joe's family, including writing letters to the priest at the Catholic Church both families once attended.

This is a tragic case—and not just because a boy died or because here are other teens in and around Orinda who, I’m told, are living with an incredible amount of grief. It’s awful because of the anger, bitterness, and nastiness it has generated within this community. I engaged in some of that negativity myself, getting angry, writing in a heated, judgmental way about the case. I don't like that I did that.

I received lots of e-mails and phone calls filled with grief, anger and recriminations. But the comments were not so much about what I wrote, but about what everyone involved was writing and saying about everyone else.

Still, I had the pleasure of having a lawyer working with one of the parties write a letter to my home and to my employer, calling me a cyber-bully. But this lawyer, in my opinion, didn’t necessarily take the high road either, engaging in what amounted to a form of legal bullying.

That’s the level that this case has sunk.

I thought that we were all supposed to be such nice, compassionate people here in the suburbs.

It turns out that what I wrote was tame in comparison to what others on both sides posted on my blog, on the East Bay Daze, and now on the East Bay Daze blog on SFGate. In the past, there were some nasty opinions hurled at the kids at the party and the hosts; now Marianne Payne is in for it.

I’ve been sympathetic to Marianne Payne and have hoped she would get the answers she needed. Some say she already knows what happened and is driven by her grief and her own denial to lash out in this way. News reports note that her ex-husband, Joe’s father, has not joined in her suit.

The “system” didn’t help matters in this case. I can’t imagine, if it were my son who died, wanting to get any more involved in this system, with more lawyers and more court dates. Litigation is draining and soul-sucking, no matter how righteous your cause may be.

But it’s not my son who died. I’m just sorry that this grieving mother feels she has to go down this route.

Hosts of Orinda teen party where popular Miramonte sophomore died sentenced to community service, probation

The hosts of an unsupervised suburban teen party, where a 16-year-old boy collapsed and died, were sentenced to community service and probation after pleading no contest to one count each of serving alcohol to minors.

Alexandra Gabrielli, 20, and Patrick “P.J.” Gabrielli, 18, were ordered to serve 200 hours of community service and to pay a $1,000 fine. This sentence stems from their hosting a party the night of May 23 in Orinda. That night, their neighbor, Joe Loudon, a well-liked, athletic sophomore at Miramonte High School, collapsed at the party and later died.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Joe came to the party, drank but only a small amount of beer, and then collapsed.

At Tuesday's sentencing, the Gabrielli siblings listened as a prosecutor read a statement from Joe's mother, Marianne Payne. She had told friends she was too overwhelmed with sadness to attend the hearing and speak on behalf of herself.

She believes that the siblings' "actions and inactions" the night of May 23 contributed to her son's death.

Who knows?

People close to the Gabriellis said that the two siblings were devastated by Joe's death. They held the party on a Saturday night that their mother and stepfather were out of town, Yes, unfortunately, these things happen, when parents leave their teens--whom they trust--home for a night. Maybe the the mother and stepfather feel pretty bad about leaving town and trusting their kids that night.

Friends say the Gabrielli siblings made many efforts to express remorse to Joe's family, including writing letters to the priest at the Catholic Church both families once attended. The siblings also were said to be willing to listen to Payne's statement at their sentencing "with an open heart."

The night of May 23, Joe suddenly collapsed at the party after drinking at most one serving of beer. He died after choking on his own vomit.

The Gabrielli siblings were not charged with wrongdoing in Joe’s death. The cause of Joe’s death remains unknown, largely because of a series of missteps by police and confusion over a prescription drug found in Joe’s system during the autopsy, but which was later revealed to have been injected to prepare his body for organ donation.

Accounts from readers who have reviewed the police reports and a November story in the Los Angeles Times say that other party-goers delayed calling 911 after Joe first collapsed. A partygoer initially revived Joe with CPR that night, and helped move him to a bedroom after Joe came around and said he would be "okay."

When he was found passed out a second time, and smelling of vomit, P.J. and Ali Gabrielli perfomed CPR, and Ali screamed for someone to call 911. That was around 11 p.m. 

Joe was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived at Kaiser medical center in Walnut Creek.

Payne spent hours alone with her son's body, waiting for the coroner.

Are parents doing right by their kids by allowing them to hide behind their lawyers in the Joe Loudon case?

The morning that Patrick "P.J." Gabrielli was released from jail, the 18-year-old was “completely broken,” his mother reportedly said. “He could not stop crying. He sat on the floor his face on the couch, sobbing for two hours.”


P.J.’s older sister, Alexandra, 19, was also crying.

The Orinda brother and sister were devastated by the death, the night before, of their good friend and neighbor, Joe Loudon (pictured here a week before his death with his uncle, Thomas).

The popular, athletic 16-year-old collapsed at the May 23 party that P.J. and Alexandra were hosting—when their mother and stepfather were out of town. At this party, according to a lengthy story in the Los Angeles Times, teens came and went and paid a $5 entrance fee. Hard liquor, including Jello shots, flowed freely. Police would later learn that a sophomore with a fake ID had bought the alcohol, and that P.J. was with him.

Authorities and the media initially assumed that Joe had collapsed after binge drinking, but a coroner’s report show that he had consumed a small amount of beer, nothing near enough to cause a normal healthy young man to collapse and choke on his own vomit. Unfortunately, the exact cause of Joe’s death remains a mystery, confused by the fact that traces of an unusual drug were found in his system—but that this drug was administered post-mortem, to prepare his body for organ donation.

While Joe was rushed to Kaiser medical center in Walnut Creek, where he was later pronounced dead, P.J. and Alexandra Gabrielli were taken to the Orinda police station for questioning, and P.J. was booked into county jail. His parents bailed him out the next morning and brought him and Alexandra home.

Friends, who saw P.J. in the days and weeks after Joe’s death said the formerly quiet, easy-going Miramonte High student was “shattered.”

This whole case is a tragedy—for Joe Loudon, his parents, and his brothers, of course—but also for a P.J. and Alexandra Gabrielli.

These siblings are in trouble legally: Each faces misdemeanor counts of providing alcohol to minors. But it also sounds like they have suffered a tremendous amount of grief and remorse. As friends told the Los Angeles Times, it’s possible that Joe’s death will haunt them the rest of their lives.

So, given the amount of devastation this case has caused to so many, it’s pretty disconcerting to keep hearing about the evasive, self-protective actions of some of the grown-ups involved. The Los Angeles Times story, written by an Orinda writer who knows the Gabriellis, as well as Joe Loudon and his family, noted how the “threat of a wrongful-death lawsuit and criminal prosecution prompted some parents to hire lawyers, who advised kids not to speak” to authorities.

I myself have written before about Orinda parents “circling the wagons” and putting up a wall of silence in this case. 

The latest incident of adults circling the wagons occurred just last week when P.J. and Alexandra Gabrielli were scheduled to be arraigned on misdemeanor charges of providing alcohol to a minor.

But they didn’t show up for their court appearance. Legally, people charged with misdemeanors can send their lawyers to appear in court on their behalf. And that’s what P.J. and Alexandra Gabrielli did. Their lawyer, Mary Carey, herself an Orinda parent, showed up instead to essentially handle this bit of dirty work. Carey entered "not guilty" pleas for them.

Who made the call that for these siblings not to appear? My guess is that Carey assured them an appearance wasn’t necessary, and even advised them against it. (I e-mailed Carey, asking her about this decision, but have not heard back.) Going to court would no doubt be uncomfortable for P.J. and Alexandra. I also bet that P.J. and Alexandra’s parents were happy with this advice, eager to spare their children—and themselves—the hurt and shame of a court appearance. P.J. and Alexandra were probably relieved to not have to go. Who knows? Maybe they had other things they needed to do, places they needed to be.

The decision for them to stay away from court didn’t sit well with the judge. After meeting with Carey and the prosecutor in chambers, the judge ordered P.J. and Alexandra Gabrielli to themselves appear in court at their next court hearing.

Good for the judge. The siblings’ failure to appear in court was wrenching for Joe’s mother, Marianne Payne. She came to their arraignment to hear the charges read against them, to hear them enter their pleas, and--if allowed--to address the court and her late son’s friends.

Here’s what Payne said about their non-appearance.

“I believe it is further indicative of their sense of entitlement to silence this matter,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I believe that these misdemeanor charges are very minor given the fact that a life was lost, and I believe that out of respect to my son and my family, that at a minimum they should have appeared to address them.”

Legally, the risk isn’t too dire for P.J. and Alexandra Gabrielli. My reading of the Business and Professions code, which they are charged with violating, shows that, at most, they each face several hundred dollars in fines and a certain number of hours of community service. No jail; no prison time.

What’s at risk is how these young people will live with themselves and what happened. If I were in their situation, I am not sure how I would get on with my life. When I was their age and attending Acalanes High School, I did some things that were not smart or healthy—including drinking and going to parties. The fact that I or someone I knew didn’t get hurt is luck.

Their supporters can argue that P.J. and Alexandra Gabrielli didn’t directly cause Joe’s death. They can say that neither forced Joe Loudon to consume beer—if that had anything to do with why he died. These supporters can also say that these two young people are scapegoats for a community and legal system desperate to assign blame.

I believe that every defendant has a right to a strong defense, and that’s true for P.J. and Alexandra Gabrielli. I also understand parents’ instinct to protect their children, and a defense attorney’s duty to work out the best deal for her clients.

But I also think that justice should be about more than who wins and who loses. It can also be about revealing the truth and leading victims, families, communities--and the defendants themselves--to healing. A big part of this healing comes from defendants stepping up, taking responsibility for their role in a crime, and accepting that they have to take in whatever pain and suffering they caused.

Are the adults around P.J. and Alexandra Gabrielli helping them to take responsibility for their role in this case? I’m not privy to what’s going on in their home with their parents, or in their conversations with their attorney. I don’t know what they told the police about the night of the party. But judging from their non-appearance at their arraignment, it looks like the adults involved need to show that they are truly looking out for the best long-term interests of these two young people.

In my e-mail to the siblings’ attorney, I stated that I may not be mother of the year. "But if your clients were my kids, I would have said, you will be in court."

I'd want my kids to show that they can behave like decent citizens of their community, and to show respect for the law and the family of their friend. I'd also worry that they would never really get past what happened--but that facing up to it in court would help.