A Pledge Dies at the University of Iowa, and His Parents Blame the Fraternity

During a fraternity ceremony on September 7, 1995, Matthew Garofalo stood face to face with his new “big brother,” Chad Diehl, and vowed to “bring honor to the name of Lambda Chi Alpha.”

In turn, Mr. Diehl took the pledge’s right hand and recited an oath. “I will always work toward the improvement of his welfare, the strengthening of his spirit, and the growth of his character,” Mr. Diehl said.

Less than 12 hours later, Mr. Garofalo was dead. The 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Iowa drank too much too fast and choked on his own vomit.

Mr. Diehl, who bought some of the alcohol that killed Mr. Garofalo, would soon be in court, answering charges that he had contributed to the death.

Mr. Garofalo’s parents sued Mr. Diehl -- as well as the Lambda Chi Alpha chapter, its national office, and Timothy Reier, another fraternity member -- in Iowa District Court in Johnson County. Edward and Monica Garofalo say that the fraternity engaged in hazing the night of the ceremony, pressuring their son to drink far too much alcohol in a short period of time. They also say that Mr. Diehl and Mr. Reier failed to care for Matthew Garofalo adequately, and that the national fraternity knew of a pattern of alcohol abuse here at the Iowa chapter, yet did nothing to control it.

Thomas C. Verhulst, a lawyer representing the Garofalo family, says it is time for the courts to crack down on fraternities.

“We’re in a society that has accepted alcohol in fraternities as part of the norm,” he says. “The Animal House syndrome has gone overboard, and people are dying because of it.”

As is often the case following a drinking death in a fraternity, no serious criminal charges were brought against those who partied with Mr. Garofalo on his last night. Mr. Diehl paid $35 in fines and court costs, after being found guilty of supplying alcohol to a minor. Two other members of Lambda Chi Alpha received the same punishment for providing alcohol to other underage pledges the same night that Mr. Garofalo died.

College students rarely receive serious jail time for their role in alcohol-related fatalities, even when they supplied the booze and pressured the victim to drink it.

In 1990, a freshman at Western Illinois University died of alcohol poisoning after being forced to drink “rookie juice” -- a concoction of beer, Schnapps, coffee, tuna, eggs, and hot dogs -- as part of his initiation into a lacrosse club. At least eight members of the club were sentenced to 50 hours of community service.

Just last week, the criminal case against a Massachusetts Institute of Technology fraternity, which had been charged with manslaughter and hazing in the death of 18-year-old Scott Krueger, fell apart because the chapter had disbanded and there was no one left to prosecute.

“We were testing the legal waters from the outset, but we felt it would have been an oversimplification to charge the guy who bought the alcohol, since it was the whole group that led to his death,” explains Pamela J. Wechsler, an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Mass.

One of the stiffest punishments meted out in a fraternity drinking death came last year in a case involving students at Clarkson University, in upstate New York. Several members of the Theta Chi chapter were sentenced to up to 60 days in jail, fined hundreds of dollars, and ordered to perform community service, after Binaya Oja, a freshman pledge, choked on his vomit and died. The fraternity members had pressured pledges to drink until they threw up, according to police.

Families of victims have been somewhat more successful in winning judgments against fraternity members in civil lawsuits.

For example, although no criminal charges were filed in the 1986 hazing death of Mark Seeberger, an 18-year-old fraternity pledge at the University of Texas at Austin who died after being handcuffed in a van and pressured to drink alcohol, the family won a $224,000 settlement from two fraternity members.

In depositions in the Garofalo case, some members of Lambda Chi Alpha testified that it was “customary” for the new pledges and their “big brothers” to cement their bond over a few drinks after the ceremony. But police and university officials said there was no evidence that the pledges, including Mr. Garofalo, were compelled to drink.

In August, L. Vern Robinson, the district court judge, dismissed the complaints against Lambda Chi Alpha’s national fraternity and local chapter.

While it was “not uncommon” for drinking to occur after the ceremony, he said, “this was voluntary conduct engaged in by individual members of the chapter.”

“A fraternity is not a custodial institution,” Mr. Robinson said, “and its members are adults.”

The judge also dismissed the case against Mr. Reier, ruling that he was not legally obligated to protect Mr. Garofalo. But he left the lawsuit against Mr. Diehl, noting that he provided Mr. Garofalo with alcohol and questioning his conduct after Mr. Garofalo had passed out.

The Garofalos are appealing the decision to drop the fraternity and Mr. Reier from the lawsuit.

“Our position is that it wasn’t voluntary because of the social pressure of fitting into the fraternity, whether it be outward coercion or subtle peer pressure,” says Mr. Verhulst, the lawyer for the Garofalos.

J. Michael Weston, Mr. Diehl’s lawyer, maintains that there was no evidence of hazing, and that not all of the alcohol that Mr. Garofalo drank came from his client.

Mr. Garofalo drank heavily and often during his high school years in Elgin, Ill., according to friends. And one week before he died, he became so drunk that he passed out on the hood of a parked car, one of his friends told investigators. Mr. Garofalo had to retrieve his wallet the next day from the Iowa City police.

When Mr. Garofalo died, police found two identification cards that falsified his age, in his wallet.

Following the initiation ceremony, Mr. Garofalo drank most of a 375-milliliter flask of Southern Comfort, and at least some of a 40-ounce beer, that Mr. Diehl had purchased, according to police reports, depositions, and a university investigation. He then roamed through the fraternity house for about an hour on a drinking spree.

At one point, according to a report by Thomas R. Baker, assistant to the dean of students, a fraternity member told Mr. Diehl that his “little brother was acting drunk, hugging other members and saying such things as ‘I love this house.’ Diehl then confronted Garofalo in the third-floor hallway and attempted to reclaim his bottle of Southern Comfort -- which was nearly empty -- but the larger Garofalo kept his grip on it, finished it off, and then remarked to Diehl that he consumed more of it than Diehl.”

After Mr. Garofalo fell down a flight of stairs, he was taken to Mr. Reier’s room, where he fell asleep on a couch.

Between midnight and 6 a.m., Mr. Diehl, Mr. Reier, and several female friends checked on Mr. Garofalo and put him on his side to prevent him from choking on vomit. Shortly before noon, a few fraternity members discovered that Mr. Garofalo was dead.

A medical examiner determined that Mr. Garofalo died between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., from breathing vomit into his lungs and suffocating. His blood-alcohol level was .19, about twice the legal limit.

Someone had drawn a beard on his face with black marker, and poured Wite-Out in his left ear, according to the medical examiner.

The university did not discipline any individual members. But the fraternity itself was suspended for four years, to insure that the fraternity would have a new membership if it comes back. Lambda Chi Alpha can seek to return to the campus next fall, and Iowa administrators say they see no reason to block the return.

Lambda Chi Alpha had several alcohol violations before Mr. Garofalo’s death, but the penalties were minor.

In 1993, for instance, the chapter violated the fraternity’s policies by holding an unapproved event at which underage students had access to alcohol, according to a letter from the national office. The chapter was put on probation -- it could hold only one event with alcohol per week.

In 1994, the fraternity chapter violated a university policy prohibiting alcohol at the Homecoming parade and was given eight warnings, including two from the Iowa City Police Department. The university punished the chapter by denying its entry into the next year’s parade.

During several visits to the chapter, representatives of the national fraternity rated the chapter’s emphasis on alcohol as “strong.” A few weeks before Mr. Garofalo’s death, the brothers signed membership agreements promising to “follow risk-management policies (no illegal drugs or alcohol)” and to “not violate the law.”

“We can look at their activities, rate whether we feel there’s an overemphasis on alcohol in social programming, and advise the group to refocus,” says Thomas A. Helmbock, chief executive officer of Lambda Chi Alpha’s national fraternity, in Indianapolis. “But if we can’t prove any violations, there’s nothing we can do,”

Mr. Helmbock called on the university to enforce underage drinking laws more rigorously. Iowa administrators, however, say they have little control over what goes on in the alumni-owned houses. “Legally, we take no responsibility, because we have no jurisdiction,” says Phillip E. Jones, vice-president for student services.

Iowa’s fraternities agreed to ban alcohol at house parties this fall. But administrators acknowledge that many juniors and seniors who belong to fraternities have off-campus apartments, and that the parties are taking place there.

“We haven’t changed the culture, but anyone who thinks it’s going to change in a year is naive,” says Mary Sue Coleman, the university’s president.

Even at 222 North Clinton Street, where the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity now occupies Lambda Chi Alpha’s house, the old drinking customs prevail.

Timothy Lewis, a sophomore pledge who lives in the room where Mr. Garofalo died, says he likes to “drink to get drunk” every Friday and Saturday night.

As he speaks, Mr. Lewis is standing in the main activity room on the first floor, the room in which Mr. Garofalo took his oath of brotherhood three years ago. He grins when asked if he drinks at house parties. “Nah,” he says. “The fraternities here are dry.”

At his feet, a trash bag holds dozens of crushed beer cans.

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