Thursday 16 June 2022 07:01 PM Two dozen frat boys charged with alleged hazing new members at SAE University ... trends now

Police have issued arrest warrants for 46 frat boys over an alleged hazing incident at the University of New Hampshire.

The alleged hazing incident took place on April 13 at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) chapter house located at 28 Madbury Road in Durham, New Hampshire. 

 University of New Hampshire reported the 'possible student hazing incident' to police and on Tuesday at 3pm, cops arrested 19 fraternity members of the SAE chapter. They have all since been released. 

On July 13, they are scheduled to be arraigned at the 7th Circuit Court: Dover District Division, on Wednesday at 8:30 am.

The arrests were made after ten SAE frat boys were taken into custody last week. They have also since been released.

It is not clear exactly when the 17 remaining fraternity members, who police issued warrants for on June 7, will be arrested. But more arrests are anticipated to made in the following days and weeks, police said.

The hazing charges are considered a class B misdemeanor. All 46 fraternity members could get fined up to $1,200 if convicted. 

The Sigma Alpha Epsilon, New Hampshire Beta Chapter, was also charged with Student Hazing by an Institution and could face a fine of up to $20,000.

Emily C. Garod, the deputy county attorney for the Strafford County Attorney's Office told FOX13 News that there is 'no potential jail time' associated with the offense.

'Student Hazing is the only charges we expect to be forthcoming from this incident,' Garod said. 

'New Hampshire law permits us to charge both the actor and subject of hazing, as well as any person present for hazing and fails to report it. The 46 individuals charged are associated with the fraternity SAE and fall within those three categories.'         

Erika Mantz, the spokesperson for the University of New Hampshire said the  fraternity has since been suspended.

'We were made aware of the incident by the fraternity's national headquarters and immediately notified the Durham Police Department,' Mantz said, the news outlet reported. 

'We have cooperated with police throughout the investigation and the fraternity was interim suspended pending the outcome of the police investigation. We take any allegation of hazing very seriously, and now that the police investigation is complete, we will be initiating a formal conduct process.'

David Pascarella, a spokesperson for the national Sigma Alpha Epsilon organization, told Fox 13 that they had launched an investigation into the allegations until the police launched their own probe, and had issued a Cease and Desist of the chapter. 

'Sigma Alpha Epsilon denounces all acts of hazing and misconduct that do not represent the Fraternity's values defined by our creed, The True Gentleman,' he said, adding that the organization were 'fully cooperating with the local authorities' investigation and have urged all of our members to do the same.' 

America has a long, dark history of college hazing that has seen nearly 300 young students die in accidents while being initiated into Greek life.

The latest incident to shock the country was the October 2021 hazing of Danny Santulli, a 19-year-old who survived severe alcohol poisoning but is now blind and wheelchair-ridden as a result of it.

Danny's family's lawyer, David Bianchi, described it as the worst case of hazing injury the country has ever seen.

'You can't be more injured and still be alive,' he told DailyMail.com this week after filing a lawsuit against two of the frat boys involved. While Danny survived, more than 200 other kids have not.

There is no official database for hazing deaths or injuries thanks largely to the blanket of secrecy that is immediately thrown on incidents by universities, fraternities and sororities.   

The closest count to an official tally is that of Hank Nuwer, a journalist who has covered hazing and written multiple books on the topic.

By his count, there were 179 hazing deaths at American colleges between 1838 and 1999, and an additional 101 between 2000 and 2022.

Three boys died in 2021 after schools reopened following a year-long shutdown thanks to COVID. There were no hazing deaths in 2020 and so far, there have not been any in 2022.

In recent years, alcohol poisoning deaths have been on the rise. In all three suspected hazing deaths of 2021, the victim died as a result of acute alcohol poisoning.

There was a brief gap in hazing deaths in 2020 when college campuses closed as a result of COVID-19.

Now, with more kids rushing back to school, there are fears of an uptick - and experts however say hazing will be harder to police now that more and more kids are taking the rituals off-campus, out of the view of the schools which monitor them.

The frat members who have been arrested include: Brendan Akpan, 21, of Springfield, New Hamphsire; Nikolaos Beka, 19, of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts; Nikolas Boruvka, 20, of Westwood, Massachusetts; Joseph Cleary, 20, of Plymouth, New Hampshire; Jason Crocker, 19, of Malden, Massachusetts;  Anthony Gionta, 19, of Baldwin Place, NY; Tucker Guard, 20, of Marion, Massachusetts; Charlie Kavanagh, 19, of Sudbury, Massachusetts; Thomas Langlois, 20, Windham, New Hampshire; Nore Mendes, 19, of  Weymouth, Massachusetts; Christopher Pacios, 19, of Northborough, Massachusetts; Samuel Patterson, 20, of Avon, Connecticut; Tyler Prout, 19, of Grafton, Massachusetts; Matthew Ray, 18, of Sudbury, Massachusetts; Simon Roy, 20. of Portsmouth, Rhode Island; Kevin Russell, 19, of Ashland, Massachusetts; Matthew Smeltzer, 20, of Harwich, Massachusetts; Joshua Tobin, 18, of Bedford, New Hampshire, and Austin Wackrow, 19, of Woburn, Massachusetts. 

Seth Burdick, 19, of South Hampton, New Hampshire; Benjamin Chase, 18, of Hampton, New Hampshire; Robert Doherty, 19, of  Wolfeboro, New Hampshire; Daniel Fachiol, 21 of Hampden, Maine; Charles Farrah, 20,  of Grafton, Massachusetts; Robert Hardy, 21, of Atkinson, New Hampshire; Oliver Jacques, 19, of Auburn, Maine; Gabriel Kwan, 21 of Winchester, Massachusetts; Mason Steele, 19, of Williston, Vermont and Colby Travis, 19, of Pelham, New Hampshire.        

DailyMail.com reached out to the Stafford County Attorney's Office as well as the University of Hampshire and the national chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon organization.

They have not yet responded to our request for comment.

Adam Oakes, 19, died in February 2021 after allegedly being ordered to drink a large bottle of whiskey during a rush party for the Delta Chi fraternity at Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Oakes was a freshman at the university when he received a bid to the Delta Chi fraternity and attended a party on February 26, 2021 where he would receive his 'big brother.'

There, his family claims, he was told to drink a large bottle of whiskey and later passed out on a couch at an off-campus residence.

He was found dead the next morning, and the office of the chief medical examiner ruled that his death was caused by alcohol poisoning. 

In the aftermath, eight students were charged with unlawful hazing of a student, and four of them were also charged with buying and giving alcohol to a minor. 

Seven were held without bond at the Richmond Justice Center. The eighth was arrested in Prince William County and released on bond. 

Three more people had also been indicted over the death, and 11 witnesses to his death were charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor, according to Northern Virginia Magazine.

Those 11 individuals could have faced one year in jail, and $2,500 fines each, but were instead ordered to do community service - making presentations at other schools about the dangers of hazing, discussing what happened to Adam and working directly with the Oakes family to explain what they did was wrong.

Meanwhile, the university announced that it would ban alcohol at fraternity and sorority events, publish misconduct instances online and pause new member recruitment.

It also expelled the fraternity in June.  

Nine months after Adam died, Phat Nguyen, 21, also passed away after a brutal night of drinking at the Pi Alpha Phi off-campus fraternity house in East Lansing, Michigan.

He was found passed out in his frat house at Michigan State University covered in vomit and urine along with three other victims who were pledges with Nguyen who were taken to a local hospital but survived.

An autopsy later confirmed that Nguyen died of alcohol intoxication, The State News reports, and the fraternity was suspended from the school.

Three students had been

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