BELLEFONTE, Pa. — The lawyer for a Penn State fraternity president accused in the death of a pledge after a night of drinking and hazing argued Wednesday that his client didn’t see anything to make him think the pledge was at risk of dying.
Defense attorney Frank Fina said during a preliminary hearing that there was no evidence that former Beta Theta Pi president Brendan Young acted maliciously the night 19-year-old Tim Piazza, of Lebanon, New Jersey, was fatally injured.
“He wasn’t there through the whole night. He did not observe any injuries to Mr. Piazza. He did not observe anything that would lead him to believe that he was at substantial risk,” Fina told a district judge who will have to decide whether to send the case against Young and 15 others to trial.
Fina said Young’s entire exposure to Piazza’s drinking lasted only 12 seconds, and there are unanswered questions about how much Piazza drank and how he obtained it.
“We can’t say at what point his tragic injuries were fatal that night,” Fina argued. “And we can’t identify all of the intervening events and the unknowns that contributed or even caused some of Mr. Piazza’s injuries.”
Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller said Young was “in charge of the fraternity” and sent texts afterward indicating he was responsible.
