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First Penn State frat brother sentenced to house arrest in Tim Piazza hazing

Burke was an active participant in the bid acceptance night events at the fraternity, including providing alcohol to Tim Piazza and others who had just signed up as pledges.

FILE – In this June 13, 2018, file photo, Ryan Burke, left, who was a fraternity brother at Penn State University's shuttered Beta Theta Pi chapter, walks with his attorney Philip Masorti on the day Burke pleaded guilty to four counts of hazing and five alcohol-related offenses related to the death of 19-year-old fraternity pledge Timothy Piazza, of Lebanon, N.J., outside the Centre County Courthouse Annex in Bellefonte, Pa. Burke is set to learn his sentence, on Tuesday, July 31.
FILE – In this June 13, 2018, file photo, Ryan Burke, left, who was a fraternity brother at Penn State University's shuttered Beta Theta Pi chapter, walks with his attorney Philip Masorti on the day Burke pleaded guilty to four counts of hazing and five alcohol-related offenses related to the death of 19-year-old fraternity pledge Timothy Piazza, of Lebanon, N.J., outside the Centre County Courthouse Annex in Bellefonte, Pa. Burke is set to learn his sentence, on Tuesday, July 31.Read moreAbby Drey / Centre Daily Times via AP, File

BELLEFONTE, Pa. — A Penn State fraternity member who plied a pledge with vodka the night he was fatally injured in a series of falls avoided jail time Tuesday when a judge sentenced him to three months of house arrest.

Ryan Burke, who had pleaded guilty to four counts of hazing and five alcohol violations, apologized to the parents of Tim Piazza, who died in February 2017 after a night of drinking and hazing in the Beta Theta Pi house.

Burke said he was "truly sorry" and accepted responsibility for his role in the events that led to Piazza's death from severe head and abdominal injuries he suffered the night he accepted a pledge bid.

Centre County Judge Brian Marshall also gave Burke 27 months of probation, fined him more than $3,000, and ordered 100 hours of community service.

"The court was shocked by what happened that night," Marshall said, adding he was "mindful that there were many involved."

Burke's defense attorney, Philip Masorti, said afterward he thought the sentence was fair. "This was an accident that nobody wanted to happen," he told Marshall. "It led to a tragic death."

Prosecutors had asked for jail time for the defendant.

Burke, 21, of Scranton, is the only one so far to plead guilty in the case, in which more than two dozen members of the now-closed fraternity face charges. A hearing for some of the others is planned for next month, and trial for at least some will be in February.

Prosecutor Brian Zarallo with the Attorney General's Office said Burke took a leading role in what occurred, as he led the fraternity's effort to recruit new members and accompanied them to a drinking station "gantlet" that began a night of heavy drinking, which was captured on the building's elaborate video security system.

Piazza "didn't know what was waiting for him," Zarallo said. "The defendant did. The defendant knew exactly what was waiting for him."

He played a videotape in which a ball cap-wearing Burke could be identified plying the wannabe members with a bottle of 80-proof vodka, and said Burke seemed nonchalant about Piazza's medical condition after he endured a bad fall down the basement steps.

Burke "can't be bothered" and left Piazza for others to deal with him, Zarallo said, describing Burke's actions as "callous."

"This is a big joke to these people," Zarallo said, telling the judge that five pledges vomited that night and one other injured an ankle.

Piazza's parents, who have become anti-hazing advocates, recounted the horror of being summoned to the hospital to find their son with a range of visible and very severe injuries, not far from the death that would soon follow.

"All he was trying to do was join an organization and make new friends," said his father, Jim Piazza, of Lebanon, N.J.

Jim Piazza credited Burke for pleading guilty but noted that only occurred after a judge ruled there was sufficient evidence to send the case to trial. "This group of fraternity brothers was playing Russian roulette with the pledges," he told Marshall. "Tim just happened to catch a bullet."

Masorti disputed that his client acted callously and said Tim Piazza made free choices — to attend the event, to go through the gantlet. and to drink. He focused on events that occurred after Burke had left, when members found Piazza unconscious beneath a makeshift basement bar the next morning and waited 40 minutes to summon help.

"Tim Piazza got drunk, that's a fact. He fell down the steps, that's a fact. He was not properly cared for, and he died from his injuries from a fall," Masorti said.

When Burke was first charged, in November, he also was accused of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, and reckless endangerment, but the Attorney General's Office dropped the most serious charges in April and a district judge subsequently dismissed some of the other counts.