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Penn State frat members cleared of felony charges in hazing death

The Penn State frat brothers accused of participating in a booze-fueled hazing ritual that led to a pledge’s death dodged manslaughter and assault charges Friday.

A judge dismissed the felony charges against the eight frat members at a preliminary hearing — although they will still face lesser raps such as hazing, reckless endangerment and giving alcohol to minors in the death of 19-year-old Tim Piazza.

Fourteen brothers will still stand trial on at least one lesser offense.

The decision came as a blow to the tragic New Jersey teen’s parents, who believe the Beta Theta Pi brothers should be held responsible for getting their son blind-drunk in a “gauntlet” of drinking games, then waiting 12 hours to call an ambulance after he tumbled head-first down a flight of stairs. “There needs to be a deterrent because we lost our son,” Piazza’s mother, Evelyn, told NBC News.





Local District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller announced immediately after the judge’s verdict that she plans to refile felony charges.

“It looked like [the judge] was assessing individual roles, which is a huge, huge error . . . It’s a group effort and the group responsibility has to be assessed,” Parks Miller told NBC, rejecting accusations she’d overstepped by filing more than 1,000 criminal charges against the young men.

Justice Allen Sinclair did not offer an explanation for dismissing the charges, according to Philly.com.

Defense lawyers in the heated hearing had argued that their clients didn’t force Piazza to get as drunk as he did and had no way of knowing that he was in danger of dying.

“Yes, there’s excessive drinking on college campuses. That does not transform it into criminal behavior,” lawyer Theodore Simon argued Thursday.





Piazza was one of 14 pledges who were lined up in the frat house’s basement on Feb. 2 and told to down a nearly half-gallon of vodka, then run through a series of drinking stations that included chugging beer, guzzling wine from a bag and playing beer pong, prosecutors say.

Those previously facing felony charges could have ended up behind bars for 20 years.

But all 14 are now looking at up to two years prison for a reckless-endangerment rap.





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