Scathing Grand Jury Report Exposes PSU Hazing, Alcohol Abuse

A Centre County grand jury has released a scathing 236-page report that exposes a pattern of hazing and excessive alcohol consumption at Penn State fraternities. The report, which was created after interviews with multiple witnesses, including former fraternity pledges and others with first-hand experience at the institutions, comes 10 months after the alleged hazing death of sophomore Timothy Piazza.

Piazza took a fatal fall after becoming heavily intoxicated at a pledge party Feb. 2, 2017. No one called for help until late the next morning, and Piazza died Feb. 4.

The sophomore from New Jersey was a pledge at Beta Theta Pi, where hazing was "routine" and had been for years, the grand jury report said.

While Beta Theta Pi may have been where the hazing activities took a deadly turn, it was not the only fraternity investigated by the grand jury. The report explores the issue of alcohol abuse and hazing across the university.

Witnesses aware of the hazing and extreme drinking say they notified Penn State authorities but little was done, despite extensive records documenting the hazing, abuse and other dangerous behavior. Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said Friday afternoon the administration had not yet read the full report but the university would be releasing a statement shortly.

As a result of the report, the grand jury has offered a series of recommendations, including more stringent rules governing hazing, as well as stricter penalties for offenders.

Pledges interviewed for the report described a series of sickening rituals fraternity brothers forced the younger pledges to endure in order to be accepted. Beta Theta Pi's highly-publicized "Gauntlet" — the series of drinking stations where Piazza spent some of his last conscious hours — is just one of many hazing activities that have become routine behind the closed doors of the fraternity houses, the grand jury report said.

In addition to forcing them to drink to extreme and potentially deadly levels, brothers would physically and mentally abuse pledges, calling them slaves, hitting them, and then threatening them if they told anyone of the activities, the report said.

The mental abuse and mind games were often just as bad as the actual physical actions and forced drinking, pledges testified.

One pledge who rushed with Beta Theta Pi in the fall of 2016 said a "mind game ceremony" was part of his bid acceptance night. During that activity, brothers covered the pledges heads with pillowcases and asked them a series of questions like: " Would you walk over glass for your brothers?" after which they led them over a floor covered with potato chips. When the pledges were asked if they would drink their brothers' blood, they were given a glass of tomato juice. When a similar question was presented about drinking a fellow brother's urine, they gave pledges Gatorade to drink.

The mind game ceremony concluded with the pledges being slapped with a paddle, the pledge told the grand jury.

Indeed, sources say the Beta Theta Pi brothers engaged in a "depraved lifestyle" and that the house functioned more as a nightclub than a fraternity going back at least a decade.

Witness Ken Rawley, who was hired to renovate the frat house on North Burrowes street, lived among the brothers starting in 2007. He described to the grand jury a place of chaos, mayhem and violence fueled by excessive and constant intoxication.

“They routinely would take furniture, television sets, clothing, beer cans, trash, and throw it out the third floor window for the sheer spectacle of it," Rawley recalled, according to the grand jury report.

Rawley said he made the university aware of the conditions at the house on numerous occasions. And while he said officials acknowledged there was a “huge drinking problem” — not just at Beta but across the university in general — little was done.

Former Penn State student James Vivenzio, who attended from 2012 to the fall of 2014, told the grand jury he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and became suicidal due to the culture.

“I was seeing girls on the floor absolutely wasted beyond their belief, eyes rolling back in their heads, you know, crawling on the floor and then being taken back into a guy’s room...I've seen a lot of just really terrible things happen," he said in the report.

Vivenzio described his pledge process at Kappa Delta Rho as a series of torturous events involving both alcohol and physical abuse. Pledges would be woken up in the middle of the night and be forced to stand in a room while the same song blasted loudly on repeat, he said.

On numerous occasions, he and his fellow pledges were forced to drink rapidly to the point of throwing up, he said. “Mr Vivenzio recalled occasions during which he became coated in so much vomit that the smell would cause him to continue to throw up,” the report said. Often they were forced to do calisthenics, like push-ups and sit-ups, on the vomit-covered floor.

Frat brothers never took care of sick pledges, Vivenzio told the grand jury.

Vivenzio, who said he also reported the hazing to various officials on numerous occasions, testified that repercussions for opting out of the hazing activities were severe. If a pledge missed an event, the other pledges would be hazed harder, causing conflict and anger between the younger students. He recalled once after missing a "line up" — when the pledges would be convened for hazing — a fellow pledge "brutally" punched him, the report said.

In Vivenzio's case, a Kappa Delta Rho brother suspected one of the pledges had reported them. The brothers responded by intensifying the hazing, interrogating the pledges, and even tracking their movements through their iPhones.

As the hazing continued, Vivenzio said he expanded his attempts to alert officials to the problem. In April 2014, he said he explicitly warned the head of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life that "a death is imminent" in an in-person meeting.

Piazza would be dead less than three years later.

The following are just some of the recommendations the grand jury has made as a result of its investigation:

• Establish "Tim’s Law," creating more severe punishments for hazing
• Strengthen the Penn State hazing policy
• Maintain a zero-tolerance policy against those who violate hazing laws
• Implement and enforce severe restrictions for underage drinking
• Strengthen laws against furnishing alcohol to minors
• Create a "pledge's bill of rights" that outlines acceptable and unacceptable behavior during the pledge process
• Establish a hazing hotline

You can read the full 236-page grand jury report here.

This is a developing story. Check back to Patch in the coming week as we continue to digest the grand jury report and provide additional coverage.

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PHOTO: Beta Theta Pi House, Google Maps