Attorney General’s Office Files Motion to Set Restitution in Piazza Case

The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office has recommended that six defendants who entered guilty pleas pay more than $220,000 in restitution for the Piazza family related to their son Timothy’s death after a night of hazing at the Penn State Beta Theta Pi house in February 2017.

The restitution of $223,598 constitutes hospital bills, as Piazza was originally taken to Mount Nittany Medical Center before being airlifted to Hershey Medical Center, and funeral costs.

The motion filed on Monday in Centre County Court includes former Beta Theta Pi brothers Michael Bonatucci, Nicholas Kubera, Joshua Kurczewski, Jonah Neuman, Joseph Sala and Luke Visser, who were originally ordered to pay $1 each to the Piazza family while an actual restitution amount would be set at a later date.

The Attorney General’s Office claims the court is not be legally permitted to delay setting a restitution amount and is filing the motion to set an amount for each of the six defendants at a hearing before Thursday, May 2.

In addition to fines, probation and community service hours, three of the defendants were the first former Beta Theta Pi brothers to receive jail time with their guilty pleas to counts of hazing and conspiracy to commit hazing. Bonatucci received a sentence of 30 days in jail. Visser received two to six months in jail. Kurczewski, who also pleaded guilty to a count of furnishing alcohol to a minor, received three to nine months in jail.

Kubera, Neuman, and Sala each pleaded guilty to three counts of hazing and one count of conspiracy to commit hazing. On top of various fines and community service, Sala was sentenced three months of house arrest, while Kubera and Neuman received 60 days of house arrest.

A total of 17 defendants have pleaded guilty and six others were accepted into Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) programs for first-time offenders.

Investigators have said that on the night of Feb. 2, 2017 Piazza, a 19-year-old sophomore, was given 18 drinks in 82 minutes during a bid acceptance night initiation event and basement party that followed before he fell head-first down the basement stairs.

Piazza, one of 14 Beta Theta Pi pledges that night, sustained a series of other falls throughout the night and paramedics were not called until the following morning, nearly 12 hours after his fall down the stairs. He died on Feb. 4, 2017 as a result of brain injuries, head trauma and massive internal bleeding from a shattered spleen, according to a medical examiner.