New charges have been filed against 17 members of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity in connection with the February hazing death of Penn State student Timothy Piazza.
Prosecutors held a news conference Monday, indicating a newly-obtained video shows fraternity members serving Piazza excessive quantities of alcohol, reports NPR. Some of the new charges include involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and reckless endangering another person.
The charges have been filed against 12 members and have been added to the existing charges against five others.
Back in September, Magisterial District Judge Allen W. Sinclair dropped the charges of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and simple assault against eight fraternity members.
Centre County district attorney Stacy Parks Miller said she planned to refile the involuntary manslaughter charges with a different judge.
During the news conference, Miller said Piazza received “at least 18 drinks in over 1 hour and 22 minutes” and he “never once obtained any of those drinks for himself. Brothers [in the fraternity] were coming up to him and giving him those drinks.”
The newly recovered video footage comes from basement cameras that fraternity members claim were inoperable on Bid Acceptance Night.
Piazza died from excessive alcohol consumption and a traumatic head injury sustained after he fell down basement stairs several times, striking his head on a metal railing.
State College Police discovered that the basement camera footage had been manually deleted just as the equipment was being turned over to police.
“State College Police sent the box to the FBI, whose agents were able to restore the video from the deleted hard drive,” says the district attorney’s office.
Also at Monday’s news conference, Timothy’s father, Jim, says he is committed to pursuing the charges against the fraternity members. He described his son as a happy and caring person who was killed at the hands of those he was seeking friendship from.
“They claimed ‘We don’t know what happened other than what was seen in the upstairs video, and we don’t know what happened in the basement.’ Guess what guys, now we know,” says Jim.