Nine members of the now-closed Delta Tau Delta fraternity chapter at Miami (OH) University have pled guilty to charges related to hazing stemming from a March 2019 that sent one pledge to a local hospital. All the guilty pleas were to a single charge of hazing which, under Ohio law, carries a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a fine of $250. According to court documents, the hazing sent 19-year-old Tyler Perino to the Emergency Room after he was forced to drink large amounts of alcohol and smoke marijuana as part of his initiation. At the hospital Perino’s blood alcohol level was measured to be 0.27, which is 3 times the level needed to convict on a charge of driving under the influence (DUI) in Ohio.
According to news coverage of the sentencing carried by Fox19-TV of Cincinnati, Tyler Perino and his mother both attended the sentencing and later expressed disappointment at the lenience of the punishments ordered by the court. Of the 9 defendants, only one received the maximum fine of $250 and the jail time component of all the defendants was suspended in exchange for the guilty pleas. Nine additional fraternity members who were charged in the incident will appear in court at a later date.
About Delta Tau Delta
According to its website, Delta Tau Delta was founded in 1858 at Bethany College and currently has 133 “active” chapter as well as over 130,000 collegiate and alumni members. Unfortunately, the Delta Tau Delta member’s conduct doesn’t seem to reflect the fraternity’s mission of “Creating Lives of Excellence” as the following sampling of past incidents suggests.
- March 2019: In the incident mentioned above Delta Tau Delta was suspended from Miami (OH) University for 15 years after it was found that pledges were forced to consume alcohol, smoke marijuana, and were physically abused during new member initiation.
- January 2019: The Delta Tau Delta chapter at Georgia Southern University was ordered to disband after its national charter was revoked over hazing violations that occurred the previous fall semester.
- February 2018: The Pepperdine University chapter of Delta Tau Delta was disbanded after a pledge was taken to a local hospital with acute alcohol poisoning following hazing that occurred at an off-campus house where 5 fraternity members lived.
- January 2017: Indiana University suspended its chapter of Delta Tau Delta after it received reports of multiple incidents of hazing the previous year.
- July 2015: The University of Arizona ordered its chapter of Delta Tau Delta to close after the fraternity’s national headquarters revoked the local chapter’s charter over repeated incidents of hazing, alcohol policy violations, and poor academic performance by its members.
- September 2014: The national headquarters of Delta Tau Delta revoked the charter of its University of South Carolina chapter after documenting repeated violations of alcohol abuse, hazing, and code of conduct violations.
Contacting a Fraternity Hazing Injury Lawyer
As Tyler Perino and his family learned, on those rare occasions when a state’s anti-hazing laws are actually enforced the courts will rarely impose a punishment that amounts to anything other than a slap on the wrist and being sent to bed without the member’s supper! However, even when a state’s anti-hazing laws are actually applied an injured fraternity member still gas the regal right to file a personal injury lawsuit against the fraternity and its members who were responsible for the victim’s injuries.
If your child has been injured as a result of fraternity hazing or some other form of misconduct, we invite you to contact the fraternity hazing injury lawyer at The Doan Law Firm to arrange a free, confidential, review of the facts in your child’s fraternity hazing injury case and a discussion of the legal options that may be available to you.
When you contact our firm, your case review and first consultation with our fraternity hazing injury lawyer are always free and do not obligate you hiring us as your legal counsel. Should you decide that a lawsuit is in order, and that you would like to have our firm represent you in court, we are willing to assume full responsibility for all aspects of preparing your case for trial in exchange for an agreed-upon percentage of the final settlement that we are prepared to win for you.