Eleven more members of former Pi Delta Psi frat at Baruch College, New York, have been charged over the death of pledge Chun ‘Michael’ Deng, 19
The Pi Delta Psi fraternity has been banned from the state of Pennsylvania for 10 years and ordered to pay a fine of more than $110,000 after the death of a pledge during a 2013 hazing ritual.
The fraternity was sentenced Monday for its role in the death of 19-year-old Baruch College freshman Chun ‘Michael’ Deng, as the judge and a prosecutor slammed Pi Delta Psi for calling itself a victim of rogue fraternity members.
‘It’s the epitome of a lack of acceptance of responsibility. It’s their rituals and functions that led us here today,’ said Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Kim Metzger said in court.
Pi Delta Psi, an Asian-American cultural fraternity founded in 1994, has 25 chapters in 11 states, including one at Penn State University that will now have to be disbanded.
Four defendants who pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and other charges will be sentenced later Monday.
A grand jury said fraternity members at Baruch, a campus of the City University of New York, physically abused Deng, and then tried to cover it up as the 19-year-old lay dying in their rented house in the Pocono Mountains.
Pi Delta Psi’s attorney, Wes Niemoczynski, addresses members of the media after this morning’s sentencing in county court in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania Monday
Pictured here is Raymond Lam in this May 15, 2017, file photo leaving the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg who is one of four men who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the 2013 death of Chun ‘Michael’ Deng
Police charged 37 people with crimes ranging from aggravated assault to hazing to third-degree murder.
Pi Delta Psi was convicted of involuntary manslaughter following a trial. In a written statement, Pi Delta Psi said its now-disbanded Baruch chapter had brought ‘shame and dishonor’ to the national fraternity.
The fraternity also called itself ‘in part a victim,’ which brought a rebuke from Monroe County President Judge Margherita Patti-Worthington.
‘I would never label the national fraternity as a ‘victim,” said the judge, who faulted the fraternity’s board for allowing the hazing rituals to persist.
Pi Delta Psi’s attorney, Wes Niemoczynski, argued that the organization had developed a ‘no excuses’ hazing policy before Deng’s death, but he said the policy worked on an honor system and proved to be inadequate.
In this May 15, 2017, file photo, Sheldon Wong, right, leaves the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg, Pa. Wong is one of four men who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the 2013 death of Chun ‘Michael’ Deng
Charles Lai pictured leaving the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg on May 15, 2017 who is another one of the four men who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter
The fraternity’s ‘Crossing Over’ initiation rituals ‘involved some physicality, but they certainly did not involve the level of physicality, the level of inhumanity, and the depravity of the individuals who are also coming before the court,’ he said.
Deng died of brain damage and other injuries inflicted in December 2013 during the pledging ritual known as the ‘glass ceiling’.
The tragic incident occurred on December 8, 2013, when the fraternity brothers were in a rented lodge near Poconos, Pennsylvania, around 100 miles from their college in New York.
It was during the final challenge, known as the glass ceiling, that Deng suffered his fatal injuries.
Kenny Kwan pictured May 15, 2017, is the last of the four men who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the 2013 death of Chun ‘Michael’ Deng
Blindfolded and wearing a 30-pound backpack full of sand, Deng was tackled repeatedly and slammed to the ground as he attempted to walk over a yard of ice, prosecutors said.
According to Poconos Police Chief Chris Wagner, Deng was the last to complete the task, and had been singled out for harsher treatment than the other pledges.
The brothers were accused of changing Deng’s clothes and googling his symptoms before deciding to take him to an emergency room.
By the time Deng arrived, an hour after he fell unconscious, medics declared him brain dead.
Deng’s mother opened up about the 2013 tragedy. ‘I feel like there’s a cat clawing and scratching at my heart, hurting me persistently and relentlessly,’ Deng wrote. ‘I wake up and I pray for deliverance.’
The grieving mother wrote of her anguish in a statement that will be delivered Monday at the sentencing of the four men who are charged in her son’s death.
Deng was taking part in a hazing ritual at this house in Pennsylvania when he was knocked unconscious. Frat brothers waited an hour before taking him to the emergency room, by which time he was braindead