Penn State frat video shows pledges being plied with alcohol

Security video shot in the basement of a Penn State fraternity house the night a pledge was fatally injured during an evening of hazing and drinking was played in court on Monday and shows fraternity members plying pledges with alcohol.

Pennlive.com said testimony in the preliminary hearing for 11 former members of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity focused on deleted video the FBI recovered.

This is the second preliminary hearing for the defendants, required because some charges that had been dismissed were refiled and additional charges were added.

The footage shows fraternity brothers handing beers or bottles to pledges, and that continued after 19-year-old pledge Tim Piazza, of Lebanon, New Jersey, appeared to be staggering in the basement.

Piazza fell down the basement stairs, and spent the night on the fraternity house’s first floor, mostly on a couch but also stumbling and falling several times.

He was found unconscious in the basement the next morning, although fraternity members waited 40 minutes to call an ambulance.

He later died at a hospital from severe head injuries that included a skull fracture and a shattered spleen that caused massive abdominal bleeding.

The hearing will decide if there is enough evidence to send the case to county court for trial. Five of the 11 former fraternity members face involuntary manslaughter charges, while other allegations include hazing, reckless endangerment, conspiracy and alcohol violations.