Former fraternity leaders sentenced in Penn State hazing death of Tim Piazza

Charles Thompson / pennlive.com

BELLEFONTE, Pa. — Two former leaders of a Penn State fraternity were sentenced Tuesday to spend two to four months in Centre County Prison for their roles in leading 2017 hazing rituals that resulted in the death of pledge Timothy Piazza.

After a seven-year legal odyssey, Brendan Young, 28, and Daniel Casey, 27, had both pleaded guilty earlier this summer to one count of reckless endangerment and 14 counts of hazing stemming from the investigation into Piazza’s Feb. 4, 2017, death from injuries suffered at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house.

Mr. Young and Mr. Casey were given Oct. 7 report dates. The prison terms assessed by Judge Brian Marshall will be followed for both men by a total of three years on probation, with requirements to serve five days of community service in each of the first two years.

Mr. Young and Mr. Casey, in statements immediately preceding the sentence, made their first direct apologies to Piazza’s parents, family and friends for their roles in the events that led to his death.

In their pleas, Mr. Young, Beta’s former president, and Mr. Casey, the former vice president and pledge master, admitted to planning the alcohol-fueled bid acceptance event that Piazza and 13 other pledges were summoned to at the Beta house on the night of Feb. 2, 2017.

Piazza, 19, was found unresponsive the next morning after he consumed what police documented as 18 drinks over 82 minutes during and immediately after an initiation event called “obstacle course.”

The New Jersey sophomore would eventually die at Hershey Medical Center as a result of brain and other injuries that medical examiners attributed to multiple alcohol-related falls, most of which were captured on the surveillance cameras posted around the Beta house on the Penn State campus.

Prosecutors initially filed felony charges in the Piazza case but district judges repeatedly tossed the more serious charges, saying there was not enough evidence to support charges like involuntary manslaughter under the laws that existed in 2017.

Jim and Evelyn Piazza, Tim’s parents, remain frustrated by that outcome.

All the charges involved in Mr. Young and Mr. Casey’s pleas are graded as misdemeanors. In 2018, then-Gov. Tom Wolf signed the Timothy J. Piazza anti-hazing measure into law, elevating hazing activities that result in serious injury or death to a felony-level charge.

Given the charges that he had to work with Tuesday, they said they were satisfied with Judge Marshall’s sentence and hopeful about the message that it will send.

“Nothing brings Tim back. But I think it was important that jail be assessed so that future (would-be) hazers will look at that and see that there are serious repercussions for hazing, and that you can’t just blame the (Greek) system,” said Evelyn Piazza. “Individuals are the ones that have actions.”

Prior to this summer’s pleas, 23 other former Beta brothers had pleaded guilty to hazing, and a 24th, the former house manager, was convicted of hindering apprehension charges after a jury trial in 2019 on allegations of evidence tampering at the fraternity.

Mr. Young and Mr. Casey, however, will be the only former Beta members to serve jail time.

A wrongful death suit filed by Piazza’s parents against 28 fraternity members, including Mr. Young and Mr. Casey, is ongoing.