Update on the status of the Beta house::
https://amp.centredaily.com/news/loc...280686215.html
A statewide appeals court panel affirmed Wednesday a Centre County judge’s ruling that found Penn State has the right to purchase the former Beta Theta Pi fraternity house where a pledge was fatally injured.
The state Superior Court upheld Centre County Judge Brian Marshall’s comprehensive 2021 ruling, finding each of the judge’s conclusions were “supported by competent evidence and are clearly free of legal error.”
The university is “very pleased” with the Superior Court’s decision, spokeswoman Lisa Powers wrote in an email. Penn State has previously expressed a desire to use the shuttered fraternity for something other than student housing.
Jim Piazza — the father of Timothy Piazza, a 19-year-old sophomore engineering major who died in February 2017 after an alcohol-fueled bid acceptance party at the house — told the Centre Daily Times the family is “pleased with and relieved” with the ruling.
“We are both pleased with and relieved to hear of the Superior Court’s affirmation of Judge Marshall’s trial court decision to allow Penn State University to acquire the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity house where our son needlessly died,” Piazza wrote in an email. “It is our view that the remaining active alumni members seeking to keep the fraternity house were part of the problem and culture before and following our son’s death. We hope the University will put the property to good use and honor our son’s life with its new purpose.”
He declined further comment, citing a judge’s gag order in the ongoing criminal case against the two former students who led the fraternity at the time of Piazza’s death.
Attorney Mark D. Bradshaw, who represents the Alpha Upsilon chapter of Beta Theta Pi, declined immediate comment, saying he had not yet had time to review the ruling. It was not clear if the organization planned another appeal.
At issue in the fight over the future of the former fraternity house was a provision spelled out in a nearly century-old deed.
The 1928 document that conveyed the property at 220 N. Burrowes Road stipulated the university could reacquire it if it was no longer used as a fraternity house for the Beta Theta Pi chapter.
The property has not housed an active chapter since its recognition was permanently revoked by the university and its charter was suspended by its national organization in the weeks after Piazza’s death. The house has only been used occasionally by a few members since March 2017, typically on football weekends.
Penn State sought in a lawsuit to have court-ordered sale of the property after the house corporation declined to entertain university offers for the property.
“The 1928 Deed contains no genuine doubt as to its interpretation,” Marshall wrote after a three-day non-jury trial.
He gave the university and the owners of the property — which is surrounded by the University Park campus — six months to negotiate a sale price. A board of arbitrators would decide how much Penn State should pay if they are unable to reach an agreement.
The trial featured testimony from some of the most powerful people at the university at the time, including former President Eric Barron. He had said the property would not be used in the future as student housing.
The university’s former top executive had multiple conversations with Jim Piazza, whose suggestions including demolishing the house or replacing it with an engineering building named after his son.
“What occurred was just reprehensible. It was awful. It was a case where I believe a young man’s life could have been saved if people cared about him,” Barron testified, according to a transcript of the trial. “And as an institution, any death is horrible, but we just couldn’t ignore the evidence that was there and needed to have a very strong message that we just can’t have this happen.”
Damon Sims, the university’s former vice president for student affairs, testified Beta Theta Pi was viewed and held itself out as a “chapter of excellence” prior to Piazza’s death.
The university’s investigation, however, uncovered allegations of hazing dating back to 2014.
“What we discovered through this investigation was there was a systematic, long-standing effort to do anything but what the chapter should have been doing and what it professed to have been doing,” Sims testified. “We had every reason to doubt that this group of people would change their way. And, in fact, we had an awful lot of evidence suggesting that this was about as bad a situation as we had seen, and that we had to take action that was commensurate with that circumstance.”
The house corporation voted in August 2018 against selling the property to alumnus and donor Donald Abbey. The real estate mogul has a pending lawsuit against the corporation, one that seeks the repayment of more than $10 million he says he loaned to the chapter.
Abbey’s lawsuit claimed a funding agreement requires the money to be repaid with interest if the property was no longer used as a fraternity house.
The corporation has denied the allegations, arguing Abbey used lavish vacations and trips to gain influence over the board president who signed the agreement. The full board, the corporation wrote in a court document, never approved or signed the agreement.
Hybrid Mode
