Hell Week: Chi Tau at Chico

[hoosier]

Surviving pledge tells of ordeal
7 will be tried in fatal Chico hazing

Cecilia Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, June 4, 2005

Oroville, Butte County -- "Hell Week" was just that for Michael Quintana.

The Chico State University student who survived the bizarre hazing ritual that killed his friend testified Friday that during the final days of rushing Chi Tau, their would-be fraternity brothers controlled what they ate (such as raw onions and garlic), whom they spoke to (no women), what clothes they wore (matching pledge uniforms) and even what they looked at (only other fraternity members' shoes).

Quintana, 20, testified for seven hours during a preliminary hearing, detailing publicly for the first time the alleged humiliation he and 21-year-old Matthew Carrington of Pleasant Hill endured in their effort to become members of the rogue fraternity.

In the end, Butte County Superior Court Judge Stephen Vincent ruled there was sufficient evidence to make four fraternity members stand trial for felony involuntary manslaughter and misdemeanor hazing and three other members for misdemeanor hazing. All have pleaded not guilty.

"They ordered us to work out, what clothes to wear, where to look, where not to look. ... (They) made us roll around in beer on the floor, and do many, many, many push-ups," Quintana testified. "Pretty much activities that you were never meant to accomplish, but to fail."

Quintana and Carrington were the only two pledges rushing the fraternity, which had been expelled from Chico State in 2002 for repeated incidents of violence and alcohol violations. Fraternity members allegedly forced the two young men to stand on one foot atop a bench in the dank basement while drinking and dousing themselves with almost 30 gallons of water during the night of Feb. 1 as fans blasted them with cold air.

"If we spilled the water, they yelled at us, or if we weren't drinking long enough, they yelled at us," Quintana said. "Pretty much they were always looking for something to yell at us about."

The initiation was known as "Hell Week," which others in Chi Tau boasted they had survived and promised Carrington and Quintana they would too. Carrington, however, suffered from hypothermia and collapsed, later dying of water intoxication that forced his brain stem to swell.

Quintana said he wanted to throw in the towel several times during the evening and tried to get Carrington to leave with him but stuck it out when Carrington refused.

"The reason I was still going through it is because I didn't want Matt to be the only one there," he testified. "I knew he wouldn't quit. He wasn't a quitter."

On trial for manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison, are Jerry Ming Lim, 25; Gabriel John Maestretti, 22; Carlos Abrille, 22; and John Paul Fickes, 19.

Charged with misdemeanor hazing, which carries a maximum of one year in county jail and a $5,000 fine, are Richard Joseph Hirth, 22; Michael Fernandez, 19; and Trent Stiefvater, 20.

It was not clear Friday how many of the men are students at Chico State University.

Chi Tau had operated as Delta Sigma Phi until 2002, when the house was expelled from Chico State and the Interfraternity Council for serving alcohol to minors. Alcohol was not a factor in Carrington's death.

On Friday, the defendants were dressed in suits and flanked by their lawyers and parents.

"There is no other evidence that any of these people knew that this was a dangerous situation," said Clyde Blackmon, Lim's attorney. The defendants did not know that "drinking water, even copious amounts of water, could lead to the death of a human being."

Carrington's parents -- who have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the fraternity and 10 members, as well as the fraternity's national chapter, Delta Sigma Phi -- audibly sobbed in the courtroom as Quintana detailed the last hours of their son's life.

"My son was just out of it," Carrington's father, Michael, said. "Matt suffered from hypothermia. Hypothermia completely disorients you."

Carrington's hazing began in October, his mother has said, with innocuous stunts such as sending pledges to the beach to trade their shirts with homeless people. Fraternity brothers also videotaped pledges dressed up like prostitutes walking down a street in Southern California, she said.

Quintana said that when Lim, whom authorities identified as the mastermind behind "Hell Week," was kind enough to let him and Carrington sleep in his room one night during the week's initiation -- instead of in concrete holes in the freezing basement of the fraternity house -- he was harassed for being too nice.

At one point the two pledges were forced to do push-ups in raw sewage when the pipes in the fraternity house backed up, Quintana said. Chi Tau members doused them with water as they were forced to lie on their backs, feet in the air, and sing a song called "I'm a Little Cockroach," he recalled.

The two also were forced to eat what fraternity members called a "pledge apple" (a raw onion) and "pledge candy" (raw garlic cloves), Quintana testified.

On the night they were allegedly forced to drink water from five-gallon jugs, the two pledges asked permission to urinate on themselves; when that happened, Quintana said, "we would have to say, 'Sir is peeing.'

"During that week, they pretty much ran every part of your life," Quintana said.