Updated 12:30 a.m. May 4.
Two Penn State students are facing charges of hazing and assault after they were accused of physical and mental abuse of new fraternity members over a period of months.
Phi Beta Sigma dean Jacob D. Francis, 23, is accused of repeatedly punching new members in the chest, hitting them with a paddle and enforcing a daily regimen designed to isolate them from anyone outside the fraternity, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed Friday by Ferguson Township police. Jayson Archer, 20, allegedly endorsed and oversaw the hazing in his role as president of the fraternity.
The university is aware of the charges and the chapter has been on an interim suspension since mid-March, according to Penn State spokesperson Wyatt DuBois. Francis and Archer “are restricted from campus except to complete their finals for the semester and then are restricted from campus and participating in all university programs activities beginning May 10,” DuBois wrote in an email.
Penn State received an anonymous report in March about physical hazing occurring at a residence on Farmstead Lane in Ferguson Township. The complainant wrote that every night since October new members were told to go to the basement of the residence and had to answer questions about the fraternity, and when they got an answer wrong they were hit with a paddle until they answered correctly. “The abuse escalated each night,” according to the complaint, leaving the new members “fearful, humiliated and broken.”
The fraternity members told the initiates they had to prove they were willing to be “bloody LL,” referring to the chapter name Lambda Lambda, and “the implication was clear we had to bleed, both figuratively and literally, to be accepted,” according to the complaint.
“This has been going on for months and it has emotionally and physically scarred us,” the complainant wrote. “We’ve been made to feel that if we don’t endure this, we’re not worthy of being part of the fraternity. This is not brotherhood, it’s abuse. We can’t stay silent any longer. This has to stop. Please help us!”
New members had “physical complications as a result of hazing, including fainting,” according to the complaint.
Penn State’s Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response identified three Phi Beta Sigma recruits, who were subsequently interviewed.
The first, who police later identified as the anonymous complainant, said that new members were forced to go to the basement every night for “sets,” which included providing facts about the fraternity. If they did not get the information correct, they were “punished” by being struck on the buttocks with an approximately 24-inch long paddle “to the extent it causes bruising and discomfort to sit,” according to the affidavit. Sometimes new members would wear extra pants to avoid bruising, police wrote.
They were also struck with the paddle three times each at the start and end of every set, in addition to the strikes they received for providing incorrect information, the person identified as Victim 1 told police.
Punishment, which the alleged victim said was doled out by Francis, also included being punched in the chest 10 times with a closed fist, according to the affidavit. Asked how many times the paddling and punching occurred, Victim 1 said it was more times than he could count.
Archer was present for the sets, but his participation involved an “oversight role” and yelling at the new members, Victim 1 allegedly told police.
New members were “not allowed to talk to anyone” other than their fellow initiates and were required to share their phone locations with fraternity leaders to ensure they were “only going to class, work and sets,” according to the affidavit. Francis and Archer also allegedly told them what clothes they could wear and directed them to make no eye contact with active members.
Alleged hazing also included regular forced participation in workouts in the basement, and when the new members did not perform a workout correctly they were punished, police wrote.
The two other new members identified by the university and named as Victims 2 and 3 by police denied ever being hazed or harmed, forced to share their location or participate in workouts or knowing what the term “bloody LL meant,” according to the affidavit. They claimed they had only been to the Farmstead Lane residence to hang out, had never been in the basement and that their only requirement was to complete five modules and an assessment, police wrote.
They also claimed that they were the only two members in their “line class.”
But a search and analysis of the first new member’s phone found conversations between all three about going to the Farmstead Lane residence and being punished for getting answers incorrect, according to the affidavit. Victim 2 acknowledged that the “punishments will be even worse” if they didn’t learn the information and later wrote that “I’m taking the hit for you tonight if we have the ability to,” police wrote.
He also wrote in another conversation that “If you get seriously hurt during this because the punishments are only going to get harder and the information we have to learn is only going to get harder, then you could put yourself and the fraternity at risk,” according to the affidavit.
Victim 3 wrote in one conversation that “We don’t have to think about dealing with that paddle for a few nights but that doesn’t mean we’re exempt from punishments,” according to the affidavit.
Police executed a search warrant on the Farmstead Lane residence and seized multiple paddles, along with Archer’s and Francis’s phones.
Text messages among fraternity members confirmed information provided by the person identified by police as Victim 1, according to the affidavit. Multiple texts from Francis referenced paddling and “sets,” police wrote. In a discussion about one new member not sharing his location, Archer allegedly instructed for him to share it.
Francis and Archer were charged via summons on Friday with one misdemeanor count each of simple assault and hazing-brutality of a physical nature and one summary count each of hazing-brutality of a mental nature.
Under Pennsylvania’s Timothy J. Piazza Antihazing Law passed in 2018, hazing is charged as a third-degree misdemeanor if it results in or creates a reasonable likelihood of injury and as a third-degree felony if it results in serious injury or death. The legislation was adopted after Penn State student Timothy Piazza died following an alcohol-fueled hazing at the now banned chapter of Beta Theta Pi fraternity.
Preliminary hearings for Francis and Archer are scheduled for June 4.
