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Record payment in the death of SAE pledge Tyler Cross

Excerpt:

Judge orders fraternity to pay $16.2 million to parents of pledge who died

By Tony Plohetski | Thursday, October 23, 2008, 01:46 PM

A state district judge has ordered the national and University of Texas chapters of a fraternity to pay $16.2 million to the parents of a freshman pledge who fell to his death two years ago after authorities said he was subjected to hazing.

The Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity must pay each of the parents of Marietta, Ga., native Tyler Cross $2.5 million for mental anguish and nearly $81,000 for funeral expenses, among other costs, according to an order by Judge John Dietz.

Dietz issued the order Wednesday afternoon after the national and local SAE chapters failed to respond to a lawsuit, said attorney Robby Alden, who is representing the Cross family. State law allows the chapters to seek a new trial, which would be granted if their representatives explain why they didn’t respond to the suit and can present a defense to the allegations.

A civil case against the organization’s alumni board and housing corporation is pending.

“This is just a terrible tragedy,” Alden said. “They want to make sure this never happens again.”

Alden said the family had sought to possibly mediate and settle the case out of court, but got no response. He said doing so would also might have allowed the family to ask questions about the days and hours before their son’s death.

Authorities launched an investigation into the fraternity after Cross fell from his fifth-floor balcony of an off-campus dormitory in November 2006.

Investigators have said that the night before his body was discovered, he and other pledges were given half-gallon liquor bottles to drink. An autopsy report said Cross had a blood alcohol level of more than twice the legal limit for driving in Texas.

Earlier this year, two former SAE pledge trainers pleaded no contest to hazing and furnishing alcohol to minors and were each sentenced to four days in jail and two years of deferred adjudication, a form of probation.

The former president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s UT chapter also pleaded no contest to the charges and received one year of deferred adjudication, while a fourth member pleaded no contest to failure to report hazing and also received one year of deferred adjudication.

SAE officials could not immediately be reached for comment this afternoon.

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank 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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