Does an "unofficial pledge process" exist?

[hoosier]

November 18, 2004

Injured pledges defend hazing process


BY HERBERT LOWE
Staff Writer

It's the most interesting question in the St. John's University fraternity
trial in Queens: Why did members of a campus chapter re-pledge after being
inducted into the organization?

Brian Chambers was president of Phi Beta Sigma's Lambda Rho chapter when he
returned his frat materials and agreed to a pledge process so harsh that
prosecutors said it led him to suffer kidney failure.

In State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens yesterday, the chapter
president-elect told a jury that Chambers, 22, felt he would not be fully
respected as a member unless he endured beatings with a wooden paddle.

"If you haven't done it, there's a lot of pressure from some individuals
that that is the only way to get the full gamut of the organization," said
Torrie Sloan, also 22.

Three fraternity members -- Phillipe Moreau, Anthony Dabreu and Matthew
Fraser -- are accused of second-degree assault for allegedly beating
Chambers about three nights a week from June 15 to July 10, 2003.

"We cannot 'skate' them," Sloan quoted Dabreu as saying not long before
Chambers became a pledge again. That meant, Sloan said, the defendants
intended to treat him harshly so members elsewhere would respect him and
the chapter afterward.

Chambers testified Tuesday that he was struck 100 times with a paddle in
Kissena Park late one night and that after the last beating, on July 10, he
was hospitalized with kidney failure and other ailments for two weeks.

St. John's suspended the chapter from 1999 to 2001 because of another
initiation incident, said university spokesman Jody Fisher.

It was re-chartered in 2002 after Moreau, 32, an alumnus, helped Chambers,
Sloan, Fraser, 24, Ryan Jackson, 20, and three others pledge in spring
2002, witnesses said.

But under what's being described during the trial as the "official pledge
process," those seven pledges were not beaten and the initiation focused
mostly on bonding and learning Sigma history and poems.

It didn't take long, however, for the new chapter to learn that Sigmas
elsewhere refused to respect them because they had not undergone what is
being described as the severe "unofficial pledge process."

So in summer 2002, Sloan, Fraser and Dabreu, 25, then a new pledge, and two
other existing members completed the unofficial process.

Monday, Jackson testified that he sought to pledge again in summer 2003
because he wanted respect.

Chambers gave a different reason yesterday.

"The main reason why I did it is because I didn't want Ryan to go through
it by himself," said Chambers, who continued with the process even after
Jackson washed out a couple weeks before the final beating.

Sloan said he warned Jackson and Chambers against pledging again.