Defense looks for holes in Penn State pledge death hearing
BELLEFONTE, PA. » Lawyers for members of a Penn State fraternity who face charges in the death of a pledge spent much of a daylong preliminary hearing Tuesday focusing on what their clients didn’t do the night Tim Piazza was injured.
A third full day of testimony by the lead detective ended with him still on the stand — and the judge planning two more days next month before he will decide if there is enough evidence to send the charges to county court for trial.
The now-shuttered Beta Theta Pi chapter and 18 of its members are accused of a range of crimes for their actions related to the Feb. 4 death of the 19-year-old Piazza, a sophomore engineering student from Lebanon, New Jersey.
One by one, lawyers for some of the 16 defendants in court — two others waived the hearing — pointed out during questioning of State College Police Detective Dave Scicchitano that their clients were not involved at key points during the night Piazza drank dangerous amounts of alcohol and was fatally injured by a series of falls.
The lawyers noted that certain defendants weren’t involved in procuring alcohol for the bid acceptance night, didn’t help operate a “gauntlet” of rapid-fire drinking stations, weren’t around when Piazza fell down a set of basement steps, didn’t participate in incriminating text exchanges, or weren’t among those who made futile, half-hearted and even counterproductive attempts to help as Piazza spent an agonizing night moving between a first-floor couch and the floor of the darkened mansion.
Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller called the defense tactic an effort to distract attention from what did occur as Piazza suffered a fractured skull, severe abdominal injuries and bleeding in his brain and stomach.
“I call it the straw man defense,” Parks Miller said after the hearing. “It’s a confusion defense.”
Scicchitano said Piazza seemed to become highly inebriated early in the evening, and was seen on video surveillance footage with a “staggering walk, swaying stance, his head was bobbing around.” A short time later he fell down steps for the first time and had to be carried up to the chapter’s main first-floor hall.
He may have fallen again — members of the fraternity found him unconscious in the basement the next morning, then waited about 40 minutes before they summoned emergency aid. Piazza died Feb. 4 at a hospital.