Hank Nuwer, Author; Hazing Deaths Database

Link:
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Four+more+Alberta+students+suspended+over+hazing/1964584/story.html

Excerpt from Edmonton Journal

Four more Alberta students suspended over hazing

Edmonton JournalSeptember 4, 2009

EDMONTON — Four more students at an Alberta high school were suspended Friday, bringing the number of teens facing expulsion over an alleged hazing incident last weekend to 12.

The students will remain suspended pending an expulsion hearing, said Battle River School Division spokeswoman Diane Hutchinson.

She did not say whether the latest students confessed to officials at Central High Sedgewick Public School, or were identified by their peers.

Sedgewick is about 200 kilometres southeast of Edmonton.

The division has also passed along any information they have gathered to the RCMP, who continue to investigate.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/25/2009/august/28/wboro-school-board-settles-lawsuit-over-hazing.html

Excerpt: WILLINGBORO – The Board of Education has settled a lawsuit filed by a former Willingboro High School football player, who alleged he was physically and sexually abused by teammates during a hazing incident at a summer sports camp in 2006.

The board agreed to pay a “substantial amount” to settle the case with the student and his mother, who were plaintiffs in the 2007 complaint. The terms of the settlement called for the exact amount to be kept confidential.

The boy had sought unspecified damages; the court documents state he had accrued about $3 million in medical bills and other costs.

No taxpayer money was used to pay the settlement, according to the teenager’s attorney, John Borbi of Evesham.

Link: http://cbs4denver.com/local/zeta.phi.beta.2.1148417.html

Excerpt: Pledges told investigators they were told to do hours of strenuous exercise including running and pushups to the point that one woman has muscle spasms “and began to shake really badly.”

Two pledges said they threw up after eating raw onions. They were told they couldn’t be a Zeta until they “ate Zeta fruit, which is onions and tuna.”

“They had to exercise hard and they had to eat some gross food, but there was also a culture related to it that was sort of an escalating you don’t know what you’re going to be asked to do,” said Anne Hughes, CSU Dean of Students.

All: Nebraska is again in news over hazing law–most interesting. Read the challenge.

UNL frat members in court on hazing charges

* Story

BY MELISSA LEE / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, August 27, 2009 6:10 pm

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* Related: UNL suspends Sigma Chi fraternity following hazing allegations
* Related: UNL fraternity members cited for hazing, alcohol

One member of Sigma Chi fraternity at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln pleaded no contest to a hazing charge Thursday, while the attorney for another argued in a pre-trial hearing the six hazing complaints leveled against his client were too vague to be properly defended.

Both appeared in Lancaster County Court before Judge Gale Pokorny.

First, Pokorny found Jonathan Knudsen, 21, of Grand Island guilty of hazing and scheduled a pre-sentencing investigation for Oct. 30.

Hazing is a Class II misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Knudsen was one of nine Sigma Chi members to be cited during a UNL police investigation into the fraternity, which has been suspended since April.

Police began investigating Sigma Chi after a former pledge came forward in February and said he and other pledges had been subjected to repeated hazing from fall 2008 to early 2009.

Among other claims, the pledge alleged he and other Sigma Chi hopefuls had been forced to drink alcohol until they vomited and were verbally assaulted and paddled.

The pledge also alleged he had been sodomized by a stripper holding a sex toy during an initiation party, an account no other pledge could corroborate.

No sexual assault charges have resulted from the investigation.

Three Sigma Chi members already have been found guilty of procuring alcohol for a minor, and one was found guilty of procuring and hazing.

Also Thursday, a pre-trial hearing was held for Kyle Humphrey, 22, of Omaha, charged with procuring alcohol for a minor and six counts of hazing.

Humphrey’s attorney, Korey Reiman of Lincoln, argued in court the hazing complaints against his client were too vague.

Prosecutors identified alleged victims only by their initials, and the hazing incidents are alleged to have occurred over such a long period of time that Reiman said it seems he’s being asked to defend Humphrey against every alleged hazing incident at Sigma Chi from fall 2008 to early 2009.

That’s unreasonable, Reiman said – especially considering Humphrey had no involvement in some incidents, notably the alleged sexual assault.

“(Prosecutors) shouldn’t be able to just throw out everything that happened and hope something sticks,” Reiman said in an interview.

But Deputy County Attorney Amy Jacobsen said in court she plans to show Humphrey “aided and abetted” repeated hazing at Sigma Chi by telling pledges they would be kicked out of the fraternity if they did not participate in certain initiation activities. Jacobsen also said she was prepared to identify the alleged victims by their full names.

Reiman requested a change of venue for Humphrey’s trial, saying the high volume of media coverage of the Sigma Chi case may hurt his client’s right to a fair trial.

Jacobsen contended significant media coverage alone wasn’t grounds to change venues, and said the request was premature until attorneys have the chance to question potential jurors to find out how much they actually know about the case.

Pokorny took the matter under advisement.

Another Sigma Chi member, Michael Classen, 22, of Omaha, also was due in court Thursday for a hearing, but Pokorny moved the hearing to Sept. 11. Classen has pleaded not guilty to charges of hazing and procuring alcohol for a minor.

The New Times link

Two frat members headed to trial for hazing as judge warns others
BY ROBERT A. McDONALD

A little more than an hour after he warned defense lawyers that calling their clients’ fraternity brothers to testify might put them in legal jeopardy, a San Luis Obispo judge found there was enough evidence to try two Cal Poly students for the hazing death of Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledge Carson Starkey.
 
 Haithem Ibrahim and Zacary Ellis are facing felony hazing charges in connection with the death of Starkey, an 18-year-old Cal Poly freshman from Austin, Texas, who died last December from alcohol poisoning after attending a booze-fueled fraternity initiation. According to the autopsy report, Starkey had a blood alcohol level of more than five times the legal limit. 
 
On the final day of the preliminary hearing Aug. 25, defense attorneys wanted to call a number of fraternity members and pledges who were present on the night of the incident, but Judge Michael Duffy warned the men they should talk to a lawyer before testifying.
 
“I am compelled to tell them that by testifying, they might be subjecting themselves to prosecution,” said Duffy, to a suddenly tense courtroom.
 
The 2006 anti-hazing law that Ibrahim and Ellis are charged with violating states, “Any person who personally engages in hazing that results in death or serious bodily injury” can be prosecuted. The judge implied that any frat members who encouraged pledges to drink that night could potentially be charged under the broad language of the law.
 
After meeting with the judge in his chambers, the defense lawyers decided not to call the additional fraternity members. Wallace Joseph Luke IV, a pledge, testified that he did not feel pressured to drink that night and that Ellis told him to “slow down and take it easy” after people began to throw up.
 
Other witnesses, however, described an atmosphere in which Starkey and others were encouraged to drink heavily.
 
After Starkey’s hearing, Sigma Alpha Epsilon members gathered outside the courtroom around Richard Conway, Ellis’ attorney, asking whether they should worry about being prosecuted.
 
“They are just jerking with you,” said Conway. “But you guys should talk to an attorney.”
 
Ibrahim and Ellis are scheduled to be arraigned Sept. 17.
 
This is the second case to go to trial under the state anti-hazing law. The first was against three Chico fraternity brothers who were accused of misdemeanor criminal hazing for running pledges through a physically strenuous initiation rite. All three were acquitted Aug. 25.