The mother of a 19-year-old Cornell University student who died during an alcohol-related fraternity hazing ritual filed a multimillion-dollar wrongful-death lawsuit against the national fraternity on Monday.
“With the death of my son, I find some comfort in knowing that this lawsuit may bring about changes in fraternities that will prevent other families from suffering as I have,” said Marie Lourdes Andre, who filed the lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn against the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity and its local chapter officers and members.
SAE, which was founded at the University of Alabama in the 1850s, consists of 241 chapters with about 11,000 undergraduate members, its website says. The lawsuit against it seeks at least $25 million in damages.
Andre’s son, George Desdunes, was found by Cornell personnel on Feb. 25 unconscious on a couch at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house in Ithaca and later was pronounced dead.
In a statement, Sigma Alpha Epsilon said it suspended the Cornell chapter's charter immediately following an investigation into Desdunes death and currently has no active chapter at the university.
"Sigma Alpha Epsilon maintains stringent policies and guidelines for its chapters as part of its risk-management program and reaffirms its zero-tolerance policy for actions that do not comply with our regulations," the fraternity said in a statement. "The organization actively promotes its anti-hazing initiative program called We Stand Together, which educates both members and non-members on ways to recognize and prevent hazing."
The lawsuit alleges that Desdunes, of Brooklyn, was kidnapped by fraternity pledges in a ritual in which fraternity members bound his wrists and ankles with zip ties and duct tape, quizzed him about fraternity lore and made him drink alcohol until he passed out. SAE pledges and members took Desdunes, still bound, to the fraternity house and dumped him on the couch, where he was left to die, the suit alleges.
“One SAE pledge tried to interfere with the crime scene by having the zip ties removed before police arrived,” the suit alleges.
Three former fraternity pledges at Cornell, an Ivy League school that has nearly 20,000 students on its Ithaca campus, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges in connection with the death.
Prosecutors say the fraternity, whose recognition was revoked by Cornell after Desdunes’ death, will be summoned to face the same misdemeanor charges. Proceedings against another defendant are sealed because he is being treated as a youthful offender.
The defendants were released without bail.
Asked for a response in light of the lawsuit, Tommy Bruce, Vice President for University Communications at Cornell, called Desdunes death a "tragedy for our entire campus community."
"We want to be clear that Cornell University neither condones nor tolerates hazing or the type of activities that we understand contributed to George’s death," Bruce said in a statement. "The matter is now in litigation, and we will be following it closely as it progresses through the courts."
