Charge dismissed against ARCA racer Daniel Dye in what witnesses described as game

Prosecutors have dismissed a misdemeanor battery charge against Daniel Dye, a driver in the ARCA racing series and graduate of Father Lopez High School, who was arrested after an incident linked to a "game" in which male added males males students hit each other in the groin, according to reports.

Dye 18, was a senior at the school when he was arrested by Daytona Beach Police April 26 after he was accused of striking another student in the groin during class. Dye was initially charged with third-degree felony battery but prosecutors later reduced that to a misdemeanor. He was released from the Volusia County Branch Jail the day of his arrest after posting $2,500 bail.

Assistant State Attorney Spencer Hathaway dismissed the misdemeanor charge on Friday as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, in which Dye completed an eight-hour anger management course, completed 25 hours of community service and provided restitution to the victim. The amount of the restitution was not provided in the documents.

Dye also had to pay $100 to the State Attorney’s Office for the cost of prosecution and $25 to the clerk’s office for processing the deferred prosecution agreement.

Dye, who is the son of local car dealer Randy Dye, was suspended by ARCA Menards Series after his arrest, but was reinstated him May 13 when prosecutors reduced the felony charge to a misdemeanor.

Daniel Dye won his first career ARCA race last summer and competed in a handful of events in 2020 for Ben Kennedy, NASCAR's current Vice President of Strategy and Innovation.

Dye's defense attorney, Aaron Delgado, said the teen just wants to put the incident behind him.

“I know Daniel just wants to go forward and be the best race car driver he can be,” Delgado told the News Journal Tuesday.

“Our preference would have been that this would have been handled at the academic level,” Delgado said. “Ultimately this was high school hijinks.”

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Students engaged in 'game'

Dye and the other student had been engaged in a game called “nut tag” or "the nut tag game” in which male students strike each other in the groin, according to students interviewed by Stephen Silvestro, a private investigator for Delgado.  The game is played among friends or at least acquaintances, Silvestro wrote.

Students slap, tag or pop another student in the genital area, particularly the scrotum, according to Silvestro's affidavit. The student struck has to tag the other person back with equal force, Silvestro wrote. Students play the game everywhere on campus, including classrooms, parking lots and locker rooms, he wrote.

The students said that Dye and the other student, whose name was redacted in the police report, were friends or acquaintances.

Silvestro wrote that he interviewed three students who said that Dye was struck first by the other student in sixth period.

But sixth period teacher, Tom Cummins, told police he did not see any verbal or physical interaction between Dye and the other student.

Seventh period teacher Joshua Knutson told police that he saw Dye hit the other student in the genitals and that the student fell to the floor and left the room. When the student returned after 10 to 15 minutes, Dye and the student exchanged words until Knutson warned that they would have to go to student services. The students stopped the discussion and things were normal the rest of the class, according to Knutson's statement.

That contradicts a passage in a police report that the student remained in the restroom until the end of school and then left.

One student in the seventh-period class told Silvestro that the student who was struck by Dye bent over and held his groin but was not sprawled on the floor. Another classmate said the student fell to the floor.

The classmates said the student struck by Dye seemed fine. They said after being struck he left the class and returned later. One of the classmates said he went to the restroom a  few minutes after the incident and saw the student who had been struck sitting on the counter while looking at his phone, according to the records.

The students told the investigator that Dye and the other student had a rivalry over racing but the statements did not provide details. Silvestro described it as a "NASCAR-type racing rivalry between the two."

Delgado said that he does not believe that the other student was involved in any racing professionally.

In his statement to police, the studentsaid Dye hit him in the groin with his fist, and the teacher did nothing about it.

The student said after he got home, his father took him to the hospital, where he was referred to a urologist. The student said he had a large bruise on his right leg and a swollen testicle.

Dye, in his statement to police, said the other student hit him in the genital area in the sixth period class.

"It had happened multiple times before over the course of the school year. Mainly during the final periods of the day where we share classes. I'd say somewhere around 5 - 10 times before. (Redacted) is who these things have happened with. I would like to prosecute," Dye wrote.

The other student was not arrested.

Dye previously posted a statement about the incident on his website at www.danieldyeracing.com:

"The facts are that me and my classmates have been engaged in a silly and admittedly immature game commonly played at the school between boys and involves hitting each other in the groin. This has been going on since we were in the 9th grade. The other student 'got me' and then I got him back. I want to be very clear that nobody was trying to seriously injure anyone in the game and I am relieved to know that the other student has recovered."

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: ARCA racer Daniel Dye sees battery charge dismissed in school incident