GLENDALE, Ariz. - To this day, nearly eight years later, it pains Zak DeOssie.

"I guess it was a team effort on that prank, but I lost my whole wardrobe that night," said DeOssie. "It was very, very sad."

DeOssie, in his first summer as a Patriots training camp ball boy, was only doing his laundry when the act was perpetrated.

"Someone sprinkled this finger-painting kind of powder on his clothes," remembered Patriot Lonie Paxton, himself a rookie in the 2000 camp. "When he washed the clothes, they all turned purple. He had no clothes for the rest of camp."

Paxton, still a suspect himself in the mystery, wouldn't go any further than the "somebody" assertion, but DeOssie has his own ideas on the culprit.

"I like to think Lonie wasn't involved," said DeOssie, who worked closely with Tom Brady in training camp. "I know it was Grey Ruegamer, one of my current teammates."

The Eagle-Tribune doggedly tracked down Ruegamer, the backup interior lineman for the Giants.

"Zak was among a crew of nefarious ball boys, known to run rampant through the dorms of Bryant College," said Ruegamer. "It's a mystery to anybody who it could have been. They were not well-liked, but liked. And the dye thing, I don't know. I can't say I'm mad it happened, but I'm not sad.

"And Lonie was among a crew of many guys, a lot of Patriots players who could have had a hand in those things. That ball-boy crew, they were no angels."

DeOssie remains steadfast that Ruegamer, if not a ring-leader, was involved. The Brown grad vows revenge.

"I bust his chops about it now, but it all comes around," said DeOssie. "Grey should know, I'll have next training camp to take care of that."