Hank Nuwer, Author; Hazing Deaths Database Excerpt from WTAJ
The Alpha Upsilon Chapter appeared in court Wednesday.
A lawyer for the Alpha Upsilon chapter of Beta Theta Pi appeared in court Wednesday. That parent organization is charged with 50 counts of hazing and a total of 96 counts of alcohol related charges in connection with the death of Timothy Piazza.
A motion has also been filed to remove the attorney for the Alpha Upsilon chapter.
Hey teacher, DON’T leave those kids alone. The need for early antihazing interventions.
Powerful update on condition of paralyzed former Kappa Alpha Psi pledge http://therunneronline.com/hazing-victim-mcclanahan-moves-on/
Excerpt:
In April 2011, McClanahan, 25 at the time, returned to his parents’ home where he collapsed and was hospitalized after an initiation evening with the fraternity. He sustained herniated and ruptured discs which left him paralyzed from the waist down. He has undergone rehabilitation for his legs and has regained use of them over time. He said he still experiences drop leg, bladder control issues, and may not be able to father any more children.
McClanahan said that his beatings not only left him with severe physical injuries and costly medical bills, but psychological trauma as well. He said he has suffered from depression, night terrors, and PTSD due to his experience.
When McClanahan was in the hospital his fraternity big brother, and fellow pledges, visited to ask him if he was still interested in continuing the initiation process. His response was, “Look at me. I’m in the hospital.’ and that’s when it just clicked like, ‘what the hell am I doing here?”
According to McClanahan, the medical expenses and psychological damages became so burdensome that he reached out to the California Victim Compensation Board to help him. However, the board rejected his application stating he did not qualify as a victim because he “kept going back to be hazed,” he said.
“So I said to them, ‘Let me ask you a question. Do you say the same thing to a woman who is in a domestic violence abuse but keeps going back to her husband that keeps beating her?’…They didn’t answer my question,” said McClanahan.
After McClanahan was denied financial assistance by the state he decided to file a lawsuit against the fraternity to help cover his medical expenses.
McClanahan began discussion about filing a lawsuit against Kappa Alpha Psi in 2012.
According to him, the next year was spent discussing how to file the suit. In 2013, McClanahan filed a civil lawsuit against Kappa Alpha Psi Inc. in Los Angeles County Superior Court. During the lawsuit, allegations arose against McClanahan’s father being aware of his son’s beatings and injuries before the night his son was hospitalized. McClanahan rebukes these allegations saying that his father “was heartbroken when he found out” about the hazing that had ensued.
In August of 2014, McClanahan said the yearlong litigation resulted in a settlement. He received $2 million from the fraternities’ insurance. He has used it to settle his medical expenses, including his back surgery that had cost $250,000.
McClanahan has also decided to use his experience to benefit others. He continued his education and graduated from CSUB with a degree in history. He said he is unsure of what he plans to do, but he would like to work in a field where he can continue to share what he has learned from his experience. He considers teaching or even continuing his education, getting a master’s degree, and becoming a college professor.
“I really feel like that’s another big issue too, is we don’t have enough adults telling these students what to look out for,” said McClanahan.
At the end of 2013, McClanahan was introduced to film director Byron Hurt who has directed documentaries such as: “If Five-O Shoots,” “I Am a Man: Black Masculinity in America,” and just finished “Hazing: How Badly do you Want in?” which will feature McClanahan and his story. The film is expected to be released at the end of 2017 and will feature scenes at CSUB with McClanahan.
“It’s like I’m trying to figure out the social psychology of how one becomes a part of a group and like why, as a society, we have the people who want to be a part of a group,” said McClanahan.
McClanahan said he was grateful for the work he did with Hurt on the film. He feels that being a part of that film helped him to process his anger and depression at the time. He is grateful for the manner in which CSUB President Horace Mitchell responded to the case. He said that the physical abuse they endured never occured on campus and he has never felt that CSUB was at fault for his ordeal.
Here is the link and an excerpt
James Cooksey, Kyler Kregel, Benjamin Pettway, Noah Spielman and Samuel TeBos are accused of a hazing incident in which authorities said a freshman teammate was restrained with duct tape, hit and left half naked and covered in dirt on a baseball field.
Most of the charges are felonies, but one count of mob action is a misdemeanor. If convicted of the most serious allegation, the five face a minimum of probation or two to five years in prison.
Given the players’ backgrounds, several legal experts expressed doubts that they would be convicted of felonies.
“I’m betting no one wants to ruin lives over a hazing case,” defense attorney Steven Greenberg said. “I suspect that at the end of the day, people will see this as an unlawful, but still youthful, indiscretion, and it will be resolved as a misdemeanor.”
Indeed, other high-profile cases in recent years — including those involving Northern Illinois University and Glenbrook North High School — have been resolved with deals that allowed the students involved to plead guilty to misdemeanor crimes, which do not carry the same stigmas — or job limitations — as afelony convictions.
In the Glenbrook North case, 16 students were found guilty of criminal battery or alcohol-related charges following a hazing incident in which seniors at the Northbrook school were videotaped beating and throwing filth on juniors at a forest preserve in May 2003. All the cases were wrapped up by year’s end.
“I would expect the Wheaton College case to end much the same way,” said Chicago-area defense attorney Sam Adam Jr., who represented one of the students.
At Northern Illinois University, 22 fraternity members pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges stemming from a 2012 hazing incident in which a pledge died of alcohol poisoning. All were ordered to pay a fine of either $500 or $1,000, perform 100 hours of community service and spend 24 months on either supervision or conditional discharge.
At the time, it was considered the largest hazing prosecution in the United States.
Richard Schmack, the former DeKalb County state’s attorney who prosecuted, said the Wheaton College allegations go beyond the legal definition of hazing, which requires the victim to perform an act for the purpose of admission into a group, organization or society associated with a particular affiliated institution.
“Sure, there are elements of hazing, but the facts as alleged are a straight-out aggravated battery and unlawful restraint, which is a simple and more straightforward charge,” he said.
The players’ attorneys repeatedly have suggested there’s more to the story, with some pointing to an internal investigation in which school officials found the accused men’s explanation “more credible” than their accuser’s account. They also have raised doubts about the police investigation, which took about 18 months.
Attorneys Paul De Luca and Paul Moreschi, who represent Kregel, issued a statement to the Tribune saying the allegations are not in keeping with their client’s character.
“This appears to be nothing more than an unfortunate college incident,” the statement read. “We know our client to be an incredible young man from a wonderful family. We intend to conduct a thorough investigation to gather all of the facts.”
But former Cook County prosecutor Frank Himel believes the investigation’s length could work in the prosecution’s favor because it could eliminate any arguments about whether it was a rash decision. Charges were filed just before the statute of limitations expired to bring a misdemeanor charge, though authorities still had another year to bring felony charges.
“From a prosecutor’s perspective, it’s a good thing because the defense cannot argue that there was a rush to judgment or that you didn’t run out all the ground balls,” said Himel, who is now in private practice. “If you leave a stone unturned, someone will point to it as a shortcoming in your case.”
In the Wheaton College case, the freshman player who complained told investigators that he was watching the NCAA basketball tournament in a dorm room on March 19, 2016, when several teammates entered the room and tackled him, according to investigative records obtained by the Tribune. The freshman kicked his legs and yelled at them to stop, only to be punched and have his bare legs and wrists wrapped in duct tape, he said.
The players put a pillowcase over the 19-year-old’s head and took him from the residence hall. The freshman told investigators that he was held down, hit and taunted sexually — despite his demands to stop — during the ride with his teammates, who he said ultimately left him nearly nude, injured and covered in dirt on a baseball diamond.
The victim, who went alone to the hospital and spoke with police the night of the incident, suffered two shoulder labrum tears that required surgeries, authorities said. He left the college that next day and withdrew a short time later.
A second football player also was targeted that night, but he was not injured and did not file a complaint. He is still on the team. Besides the five accused men, a few other players were present during the hazing but they were not charged with any wrongdoing.
An attorney involved in the case, along with several students and parents, told the Tribune that the incident is a team tradition dating back as far as 20 years. The school has an anti-hazing policy that prohibits athletes from humiliating, degrading, abusing and endangering another person when they join a campus team or organization.
None of the charges against the five players allege sexual misconduct, but the victim did state that he believed someone tried to insert an object into his rectum during the ride. College officials, who hired a third-party Title IX investigator to review that specific allegation, told him in a letter last November that they found the players’ account “more credible” than his, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Tribune.
Kregel’s attorneys denied the player who filed the complaint was ever harmed sexually, as alleged in his statement.
“The uncharged, false allegations of sexual misconduct have been completely manufactured to sensationalize the incident, likely to pressure Wheaton College into a large financial settlement,” their statement read. “The allegations of sexual misconduct were found to be unsupported on the evening of the incident and ever since then. Those promoting (it) should be ashamed of themselves because they have severely and maybe forever prejudiced the reputations of five collegiate athletes.”
One player also was found in violation of the school’s sexual harassment policy for comments he made during the incident. A note was placed in his file, according to the letter, which was dated November 2016.
The letter also indicted the college had taken “corrective action” in connection with the allegation’s hazing component.
College officials, however, have taken a harsher stance since the criminal charges were levied. In a statement released last week, officials called the incident “entirely unacceptable” and contrary to the school’s religious values and “values we share as human beings.”
In an email to alumni late Friday, Wheaton College President Philip Ryken said the board of trustees has hired consultants to oversee a review of the nearly 160-year-old college’s anti-hazing policy and the “culture around how students treat one another in campus communities and organizations, including our athletic teams.”
“We are working to ensure the total well-being of every person on campus and to live out all that we value as a Christ-centered learning community,” Ryken wrote.
Wheaton College suspended the accused players from practice and competition following the criminal charges. Each is still listed on the team’s roster.
The Thunder, a perennial Division III powerhouse, currently are ranked fifth in the nation.
Longtime head coach Mike Swider did not speak directly about the scandal after Saturday’s win at Elmhurst College — the team’s first game since the charges were made public. He acknowledged it had been an emotional week for “obvious reasons” but that his players responded like champions.