Plan B Forum

18 fraternity brothers charged in death of pledge at Penn State University

BELLFONTE, Pennsylvania (WPMT) -– Following a three-month long investigation the Centre County District Attorney announced Friday that Beta Theta Pi and 18 people have been charged in connection to the death of Pennsylvania State University student Timothy Piazza.

Piazza, 19, of Lebanon, New Jersey died February 4 at Penn State Hershey Medical Center after he fell down stairs at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house in State College during a party on February 2. He was a pledge at the fraternity.

Penn State has permanently banned Beta Theta Pi, citing evidence of hazing, forced drinking and other illegal activity.

Brendan Young, Daniel Casey, Jonah Neuman, Nick Kubera, Michael Bonatucci, Gary Dibileo, Luke Visser and Joe Sala are each charged with involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, hazing, furnishing alcohol to minors and unlawful acts relative to liquor. Young and Casey are also charged with tampering with evidence.

Ten others are also facing charges; Michael Angelo Schiavone, Craig Heimer, Lars Kenyon, Parker Jax Yochim are each charged with recklessly endangering another person, hazing, furnishing alcohol to minors and unlawful acts relative to liquor. Ed Gilmartin, Ryan McCann, Lucas Rockwell, Braxton Becker and Ryan Foster are each charged with tampering with evidence. Joseph Ems is charged with recklessly endangering another person.

The grand jury concluded that the brothers at Beta Theta Pi cultivated such a permissive atmosphere regarding excessive alcohol consumption, that Piazza's death was not an unfortunate accident, but was the direct result of encouraged reckless conduct that demonstrated a reckless disregard for human life, or a reckless interference to the possible consequences of such conduct.

Investigators say over 40 minutes elapsed before the fraternity called for help after they discovered Piazza was looking deathly ill the morning after the party. Following Piazza's death, authorities said fraternity brothers tried to destroy any evidence that would reveal what had been happening behind the doors of Beta Theta Pi.

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BELLEFONTE, Pa. — For the first time, prosecutors on Monday aired portions of the gruesome surveillance video from the Pennsylvania State University fraternity party at which they say members helped pledge Tim Piazza become dangerously drunk then left him to die after he fell down a flight of stairs.

Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller offered the video in a bid to persuade Judge Allen Sinclair to hold members of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity for trial on charges related to Piazza’s Feb. 4 death. Lawyers for the fraternity members charged with manslaughter and other crimes sought to block the video’s introduction at the hearing here, but Judge Sinclair denied their requests.

After hearing the prosecution evidence into the evening, the judge late Monday granted a defense request to continue the proceeding, although he did not set a date. Defense lawyers said they want to cross-examine investigators and prepare their arguments, including that the district attorney overreached in the charges. They also asked that the video be introduced formally into evidence, making it publicly accessible.

The district attorney objected. “I don’t want to make it public record so the press can play it on TV,” Ms. Parks Miller said. The judge did not rule on the request.

The hours of video Ms. Parks Miller played in court, captured by 12 surveillance cameras installed in and around the Beta Theta Pi house, recorded the so-called “bid night” on Feb. 2, when fraternity pledges were inducted, hazed and forced to endure a gauntlet of drinking.

The grand jury presentment released last month had described the video in detail. But it was no match for the actual footage.

Among the excerpts aired on a small screen in the courtroom was one showing pledges — including 19-year-old Piazza, dressed that night in a blazer, collared shirt and tie — guzzling vodka at one station then rushing to the next to consume a can of beer in a single swig.

Another clip shows four members carrying Piazza’s limp body and putting him on a couch after he fell down the basement stairs. Over the next hours, members are shown slapping the sophomore engineering student from Lebanon, N.J., pouring liquid on him, sitting on his legs, struggling to put a backpack on him — an apparent attempt to prevent him from choking on his vomit — and even throwing a shoe at him.

Prosecutors allege that some fraternity members wanted to call for help but were overruled by others. Nearly 12 hours passed before anyone called for an ambulance, the grand jury presentment said. Piazza suffered a non-recoverable brain injury, a ruptured spleen and collapsed lung and died a day later.

His death has brought another unflattering spotlight to Penn State and renewed national discussion on campus drinking and fraternity hazing. In its wake, Penn State permanently banned Beta Theta Pi and instituted new rules for the rest of the Greek system, 83 fraternities and sororities.

The surveillance video was aired without sound, just narrated at times by State College Detective Dave Scicchitano, whose testimony was guided by questions from the prosecutor.

Within 90 minutes of his first drink, Piazza’s blood-alcohol level had soared to near four times the legal driving limit, the detective told the judge.

Evidence suggested that Piazza was entered into the drinking gauntlet at the Beta Theta Pi house at 9:52 p.m. By 11:22 p.m., he said, the young man’s blood-alcohol content was between 0.28 and 0.36, and the fraternity brothers struggled to hold him up.

Hours into the night, the video shows Piazza alone in the darkened main room of the fraternity house, stand up, stumble and fall repeatedly. At one point, he rises to his knees and cradles his head in his hands. At another, he lies in a fetal position. No one helps. A bare-chested Piazza appears to be alone for hours as he writhes and rolls around on the floor.

“This young man is squirming around because he’s in the worst pain of his life,” Ms. Parks Miller told the judge.

By the next morning, when he had spent hours untouched after falling down a flight of stairs for the second time, Piazza “looked dead,” Detective Scicchitano testified. “He looked like a corpse.”

As the hearing opened in a packed courtroom Monday, Piazza’s parents, Jim and Evelyn, took front row seats, along with their lawyer, Tom Kline.

Jim Piazza glared at Joseph Ems Jr., one of the fraternity brothers, when the detective identified him as the one who threw the shoe at Piazza and the one who slapped him in the abdomen. Mr. Ems, who has been charged with reckless endangerment, kept looking straight ahead.

But the Piazzas left before the video began airing, and returned only when it was over. “What we saw today was horrific,” their lawyer, Mr. Kline, said after the proceedings.

BoSoxGal wrote:... an exact reenactment and show it as a PSA to educate youth about the dangers of binge drinking.