Recovered Video Shows Pledge Given 18 Drinks in 82 Minutes

The police were able to recover deleted video related to Tim Piazza's death
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Nov 13, 2017 7:34 PM CST
26 Now Charged in Penn State Fraternity Death
District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller speaks during a new conference about new evidence in the investigation into the death of Beta Theta Pi fraternity pledge Tim Piazza, Monday, Nov. 13, 2017, at the Centre County Courthouse Annex in Bellefonte, Pa. Newly recovered security camera footage from inside...   (Phoebe Sheehan/Centre Daily Times via AP)

Newly recovered security camera footage from inside a Penn State fraternity house showed a pledge had been given at least 18 drinks in 82 minutes, investigators said Monday in announcing dozens of new charges related to the pledge's death. Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller charged 10 new defendants, reinstated charges against two people whose cases had been dropped, and added counts against five who had previously been charged for actions surrounding the Feb. 4 death of Beta Theta Pi pledge Tim Piazza, the AP reports. One fraternity member is accused of deleting the video as police were seeking the footage. Twenty-six people now face charges in the case.

Piazza, a 19-year-old engineering student from Lebanon, New Jersey, suffered a fractured skull, shattered spleen, and other injuries, likely during a series of falls inside the house. He was estimated to have had a blood-alcohol level several times the legal limit for adult drivers. The house's security system captured many of the events the night Piazza was injured, footage that had already been played at a preliminary hearing for those charged previously. But until recently, that did not include the basement, where Piazza was found the next morning. A court affidavit said one of the brothers, Braxton Becker, purposely deleted the basement footage two days after Piazza died but the FBI was able to recover it. Becker's motive, wrote State College Police Detective David Scicchitano, was to conceal the worst of the drinking and hazing.

(More fraternity stories.)

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