The defense lawyer for a former LSU student accused in the 2017 alcohol-related hazing death of Max Gruver portrayed the fraternity pledge in court filings Tuesday as an out-of-control freshman who drank and smoked marijuana to excess — claims Gruver's parents called an exercise in "cruel" victim-blaming.

Gruver, of Roswell, Georgia, died Sept. 14, 2017, of alcohol poisoning following a hazing ritual dubbed “Bible study,” in which Phi Delta Theta pledges were required to chug hard liquor if they gave incorrect answers to questions about the fraternity.

An autopsy showed the 18-year-old’s blood-alcohol level was a shocking 0.495 percent, which is more than six times the legal limit to drive in Louisiana. The autopsy also detected the chemical found in marijuana, THC, in his system.

Former LSU student Matthew Naquin, 21, of Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas, is charged with negligent homicide in Gruver's death and is scheduled to stand trial July 8. He faces up to five years in prison.

Naquin’s lead attorney, John McLindon, filed a motion Tuesday that quotes fraternity members who described Gruver as a “party animal” who consumed alcohol and used marijuana on a daily basis in the month he was on the school's campus and showed up “high” to the hazing ritual before his death.

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Gruver's roommate stated in an interview that Gruver, who was on the LSU campus about 30 days, was "sober for maybe five of those nights," the court filing says. Another witness told the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney’s Office it was commonplace for him to see Gruver drunk, so he “did not think much of it when Max was laid out on the couch” following the hazing ritual, the filing states.

McLindon contends a jury should be allowed to hear of Gruver's alleged alcohol and marijuana use. He’s asking state District Judge Beau Higginbotham to rule on the admissibility of the proposed evidence.

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III said the overwhelming majority of that evidence “is clearly inadmissible,” and he added that any of the evidence that may be deemed permissible would be limited to Gruver’s actions “the day and night of this event.”

“The Prosecution points the finger at Matthew Naquin claiming that he killed Max Gruver by forcing him to drink alcohol. A review of the pretrial discovery reveals that this simply is not true," McLindon writes in his motion. "Max Gruver, sadly and tragically, began using alcohol and smoking marijuana from the first day he set foot on campus at LSU. He continued to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana on a daily basis."

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Gruver’s parents, Stephen and Rae Ann Gruver, blasted what they described as the beginning of “an old, tired tactic” of victim-blaming and victim-shaming intended to deflect attention from the hazing ritual and the role played by Naquin in their son’s death.

“Like so many other times over the past decades, a fraternity member has sought to evade responsibility for killing a fine young man by blaming the victim. This is not new. Time and again fraternities hurt and kill others by hazing and try to push the blame elsewhere. No more,” the Gruvers said in a written statement.

“This motion is nothing but a cruel ploy to harm Max’s reputation for the benefit of those responsible for his death. Mr. Naquin’s defense attempted to silence our family with the threat of this motion — however, we know who our son was and have no fear of the truth,” they added, saying further that Max would be alive today “were it not for the hazing and actions of people who were supposed to be his brothers.”

Read the full statement from the Gruvers here.

McLindon responded to their statement by saying he has “taken the high road at all times in this case, out of respect for the Gruver family.”

“No one at the DA’s office would characterize my conversations and correspondence with their office as a threat,” he said in an email.

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In a post earlier Tuesday on the “Fly High Max” Facebook page, Gruver’s parents said the defense “has been threatening us with exposing this `hearsay’ information for weeks in the hopes we would make a plea deal for their defendant to give him a lesser charge of hazing, not negligent homicide.”

“Well, we will not back down. We will not be threatened. Max was a great kid and he didn’t deserve to die by being forced to drink 190 proof grain alcohol while being HAZED! His blood alcohol speaks volumes. Over a .495 the night he died! You can’t physically do that on your own unless you are being forced. Shame on people who can’t be accountable for their actions.”

The post concluded by saying hazers killed Max, “Not his behavior prior.”

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Moore, whose office is prosecuting Naquin and several others charged in the case, said it is clear from the autopsy and toxicology reports that Gruver “died from alcohol intake on this particular night and not from smoking marijuana or from any previous uses of drugs or alcohol.”

The motion filed by McLindon cites numerous interviews of both prosecution and defense witnesses, all identified only by their initials, to corroborate Gruver's alleged alcohol and marijuana use at LSU. Some of the interviews were conducted by the LSU Police Department, the District Attorney's Office, and LSU Student Accountability officials.

A pledge who had been standing next to Gruver the night of the "Bible study" told LSU investigators that he encouraged Gruver to do as he was doing and fake drink — put his tongue in the bottle and not allow any alcohol to come into his mouth — but Gruver did not do so, the motion states.

In response to that statement, an LSU police officer told the pledge: "I'm not trying to say Max isn't complicit or culpable for his own actions," the filing says.

Another witness told the District Attorney's Office that one night at a bar Gruver was "on another level of drunk," according to the filing.

"The evidence of Gruver's excessive and frequent consumption of alcohol ... negates the commission of the crime at all, and certainly negates any intent or criminal negligence on the part of Matthew Naquin," McLindon argues.

Other court documents filed previously in the case claim Naquin was adamant about not wanting Gruver in Phi Delta Theta, and that Naquin was warned by members of the fraternity — just days before Gruver died — to tone down his interactions with pledges. He was told his actions with pledges were extreme and dangerous, the documents allege. Higginbotham has ruled that prosecutors can use that evidence at Naquin’s trial.

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Naquin's former roommate, Ryan Matthew Isto, 19, of Butte, Montana, and ex-LSU student Sean-Paul Gott, 22, of Lafayette, pleaded "no contest" last fall to misdemeanor hazing in the Gruver case and agreed to testify at Naquin's trial. Another former LSU student charged with hazing, Patrick Andrew Forde, 21, of Westwood, Massachusetts, has promised to cooperate with prosecutors and testify at the trial. The East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney’s Office will decide later whether to prosecute Forde.

Phi Delta Theta has been banned from LSU's campus until at least 2033.