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A man whose son died during a 2017 fraternity hazing ritual at Penn State University warned students and parents of the ills of the practice in an interview with Fox News Digital, saying anyone could become a victim.
Jim Piazza’s son, Timothy, was recruited to join the Beta Theta Pi chapter at the school in February 2017. He was invited to a bid acceptance party, where he and several other pledges were forced to consume a handle of vodka.
They were then forced to drink more hard liquor before competing in an alcohol “obstacle course,” which included “beer pong stations, and other stations where they had to drink varying forms of alcohol, wine bags, beer shotguns, that type of thing,” Jim said.
Timothy Piazza and his family dressed in Penn State gear. Timothy died from a hazing incident in 2017. (Jim Piazza)
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“After that obstacle course was completed, you could see in video all of the individuals, all the pledges were pretty banged up,” Jim said. “Then they all went to the basement of this fraternity house and they continued on feeding the pledges drinks. Different fraternity guys would hand them drinks and make them chug it and whatnot.”
Soon thereafter, Timothy was moved to an upstairs couch where he was left alone. According to Jim, he attempted to open a door and leave the house, but couldn’t given his level of intoxication. He then fell down 15 basement stairs, causing a brain bleed and a ruptured spleen. He suffered a lung collapse due to aspiration from his own vomit.
Still, the fraternity members picked him up and returned him to the couch.
“They threw him back on the couch and throughout the night they were slapping him, throwing alcohol on him, throwing stuff at him. And then finally at about, you know, 1 o’clock in the morning or so, they all went to bed, and they left him laying there,” Jim said.
Timothy was found in the basement again the next morning, unconscious and unresponsive. Jim said fraternity members spent 45 minutes deciding what to do before they called 911. A little more than 12 hours later, Timothy died at Hershey Medical Center. He had alcohol poisoning from the incident, and the official cause of death was the brain bleed, known as a subdural hematoma.
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A photo of Timothy Piazza taken during a high school athletic competition. Timothy passed away after a hazing incident in 2017. (Jim Piazza)
“When everything happened and we got to the hospital and then they told us that, that Tim’s brain injury was nonrecoverable, I felt like I was in a dream,” Jim said.
“To learn that we lost him to people that were supposed to become his friends, and they could have saved his life … you can’t even get your head around it,” he continued. “Like, how could that be? Whether they’re his friends or not, how could individuals not care at all to make sure somebody was OK? It’s brutal, and it continues to be brutal.”
Jim and his wife, Evelyn, now travel the country doing activism work. They speak to fraternities and sororities about the dangers of hazing, telling Timothy’s story.
They were also instrumental in the passage of the Timothy J. Piazza Anti‑Hazing Law in Pennsylvania, which classifies hazing rituals that cause serious injuries or deaths as felonies. Their work also led to the passage of the federal Stop Campus Hazing Act in December, which mandates established standardized hazing reporting guidelines for universities, as well as various accountability measures.
Jim Piazza speaks about the importance of passing the anti-hazing legislation named after his son, Timothy Piazza, outside of the Centre County Courthouse on Friday, March 23, 2018 in Bellefonte, Pa. (Abby Drey/Centre Daily Times/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
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Jim said they focus on educating Greek life leaders about the potential criminal repercussions of hazing and often have success getting through to students, but he also has a message for parents who are often “lacking” an understanding of hazing.
“We really need to get to parents, because many parents don’t think it can happen to them,” Jim said. “‘It can’t happen to my kid, that’s somebody else’s kid that it happens to.’ Well, it does happen, and it happens to good kids from good families, you know, wealthy, not wealthy. It’s non-discriminating.”
And while parents might not be held criminally liable, there are other risks, Jim warned.
Twenty-one fraternity members were charged in his son’s case, and he estimates they each spent about a million dollars on their criminal defenses.
Luke Visser, Michael Bonatucci and Joshua Kurczewski former members of the fraternity, were all sentenced to jail time in 2019 after pleading guilty to hazing-related charges.
Visser reportedly received a two to six month sentence followed by three years of probation, while Bontanucci received a one to six month sentence and one year of probation and Kurczewski received a three to nine month sentence and one year of probation.
Jim and Evelyn Piazza, center, stand by as Centre County, Pa., prosecutors discuss an investigation into the death of their son Timothy Piazza, seen in photo at right, during a news conference in Bellefonte, Pa. Centre County, Pa. (AP)
Last year, former chapter president Brendan Young and former vice president/pledge master Daniel Casey each pleaded guilty to 14 counts of hazing and one count of reckless endangerment, according to People.
They each received two to four months in prison and three years of probation.
“You’re basically spending your parents’ retirement money when you’re doing that,” he said. “And they need to make sure they’re having a conversation with their kid to say ‘hey, if somebody’s asking you to do things that make you feel uncomfortable or make you or someone else unsafe, just say no.'”
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Parents need to tell their children to focus on learning and developing skills for a career, and to avoid getting into trouble inside or outside of academia, Jim said.
As for fraternity pledges going through rush this fall, Jim said that based on the structure and dynamics of fraternities, they have the power to control their own fate, and don’t have to be victims of hazing.
“At the end of the day, the pledges have a little bit of power in that they could just band together and say, we’re not doing that, because the fraternity members need them,” he said.
“They need the money, right? They need money to move in the house, and they need the money to pay the dues,” he continued. “And we know of groups that have said, ‘no, we are not doing that,’ and the fraternity members gave them a hard time at first, and then after a while it was like, ‘OK, well, we still need the pledge class, so fine.’”
A photo of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house at Penn State University. (AP Photo)
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Jim criticized some fraternities at the national level, and some chapters of some fraternities at various schools for not taking anti-hazing policies seriously enough, saying that “they’re not getting it” and that “same old, same old” hazing habits still continue.
However, he has not soured on Greek life as a whole.
“I don’t have a problem with Greek life,” he said. “I think it has a lot of good things that it could give to the students. It can make a big campus small. It could create friendships that are everlasting. I think it teaches individuals that take the leadership roles how to be leaders.”
Beta Theta Pi did not return a comment request.