Fraternity banned from Pennsylvania over Baruch student’s hazing death
The Pi Delta Psi fraternity has been banned from the state of Pennsylvania for 10 years after a pledge’s hazing death in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains five years ago.
„It’s the epitome of a lack of acceptance of responsibility,“ Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Kim Metzger said today in court, according to The Associated Press. „It’s their rituals and functions that led us here today.“
Pi Delta Psi, an Asian-American fraternity, also must pay a fine. The organization was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
The sentencing stems from the alleged hazing ritual that killed 19-year-old Chun „Michael“ Deng in 2013.
Deng was a freshman at Baruch College in New York. He was pledging the Pi Delta Psi fraternity when he died after an apparent ritual at a home the fraternity rented in the Pocono Mountains.
Police said Deng was injured while participating in a ritual known as the „glass ceiling,“ in which pledges, blindfolded and wearing a 30-pound backpack, must „get through a line of brothers while fraternity members shove and take the pledges down and resist the pledge from getting through the line.“
Deng was tackled and knocked out, police said. While he was unconscious, fraternity members called the national fraternity president, who allegedly told them to hide all fraternity items, according to authorities. The students waited for more than an hour before driving Deng to a hospital 45 minutes away, police said.
Deng died from multiple traumatic injuries and „the delay in treatment of one to two hours significantly contributed“ to his death, according to the forensic pathologist.
Thirty-seven people were charged in total, including four former fraternity members who are set to be sentenced later today for their roles, according to the AP. Kenny Kwan, Charles Lai, Raymond Lam and Sheldon Wong had been charged with third-degree murder but last year pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and hindering apprehension.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
