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New Charges: Alpha Phi Alpha Alleged Beating

Here is a snippet and link to the Daily Pennsylvanian

 

College senior E. Martyn Griffen has taken further measures against two Penn individuals who he says beat and branded him in an alleged hazing incident last fall.

Griffen filed a private complaint that now has the two facing criminal charges from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.

These charges are in addition to a lawsuit that Griffen filed against the two fraternity brothers, as well as the national and Penn chapters of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

College senior Kelechi Okereke and Education graduate student Lionel Anderson-Perez will attend criminal hearings Nov. 22, and the civil lawsuit filed against them will likely be put on hold until after all criminal proceedings conclude, Griffen’s lawyer Robert Sachs said.

Griffen alleges that the two lacerated him with a rubber band and severely beat his legs during pledging in the spring.

Anderson-Perez is criminally charged with harassment and simple assault. Kelechi is also charged with harassment.

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank Nuwer tracks hazing deaths in fraternities and schools. Nuwer is the Alaska author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives; Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing, High School Hazing, Wrongs of Passage and The Hazing Reader. In April of 2024, the Alaska Press Club awarded him first place in the Best Columnist division and Best Humorist, second place.

He has written articles or columns on hazing for the Sunday Times of India, Toronto Globe & Mail, Harper's Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His current book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press. He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska Nuwer of Warsaw, Poland and Fairbanks, Alaska. Nuwer is a former columnist for the Greenville (Ohio)Early Bird and former managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska.
Nuwer was named the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists columnist of the year in 2021 for his “After Darke” column in the Early Bird. He also won third place for the column in 2022 from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He and his wife Gosia, recently of Union City, Ind., have owned 20 acres in Alaska for many years. “The move is a sort-of coming home for us,” said Nuwer. As a journalist, he’s written about the Alaskan Iditarod sled-dog race and other Alaska topics. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com and in his weekly column "Far from Randolph" in the Winchester Star-Gazette of Randolph County, Indiana.

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