Key charges dismissed in frat death

BELLEFONTE, Pa. — A judge on Friday threw out involuntary manslaughter and felony assault counts filed against members of a Penn State fraternity in a pledge’s alcohol hazingrelated death, ordering 12 of the members to stand trial on lesser counts.

District Justice Allen Sinclair dismissed charges altogether against four of the members of the now-shuttered Beta Theta Pi fraternity. Fourteen fraternity brothers are now headed to trial in the case. Two had previously agreed to waive a preliminary hearing.

Charges remaining range from alcohol violations and hazing to reckless endangerment.

“Obviously now the teeth have really been taken out of the commonwealth’s case,” defense attorney Michael Engle said.

The decision followed a seven-day preliminary hearing in which the defendants and defense attorneys fought against allegations that a night of hazing and heavy drinking caused the death of Tim Piazza on Feb. 4.

Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller had argued that members of the fraternity pressured Piazza and other pledges to drink heavily to mark their decision to pledge the organization. That pressure included running them through a speeddrinking “gantlet” and directing them to collectively drain a large bottle of vodka.

Security video recorded Piazza, a 19-year-old sophomore from Lebanon, N.J., appearing intoxicated and being led to a couch after 11 p.m. A few minutes later, he fell head-first down a set of basement stairs and had to be carried back up in an unconscious state.

In the early morning hours, Piazza was pictured stumbling from the couch to other areas on the vast house’s first floor, including falls into a door and onto a stone floor. He somehow ended up back in the basement and was again carried back upstairs to a couch. It took another 40 minutes for fraternity members to call an ambulance. He soon died at a hospital.