BY: Walker
Published 3 years ago
11 men have been charged after the body of Adam Oakes, a 19-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University student, was found at an off-campus home in February.
via: Daily News
Eleven indictments in total were handed down Friday, with the final three waiting to be arrested, according to the Richmond Police Department.
Benjamin Corado, 19; Quinn Kuby, 22; Riley McDaniel, 21; Alessandro Medina-Villanueva, 21; Jason Mulgrew, 21; Christian Rohrbach, 22; Colin Tran, 20; and Enayat Sheikhzad, 22, have all been charged with unlawful hazing of a student.
Corado, Kuby, and Tran have also been charged with purchasing and giving alcohol to a minor.
Freshman Adam Oakes was found dead in February in off-campus housing after he attended an initiation party at the Delta Chi fraternity, where he had been pledging, according to his family.
Oakes had been forced to drink a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey as part of his hazing, his family believes, and a coroner confirmed his cause of death as ethanol toxicity.
“We are grateful for some measure of justice these charges and arrests may produce, as well as the protection from hazing they may give young, impressionable college students. The past 7 months have been agonizing for our family. This is the first time these young men have been held accountable for their historically toxic and destructive traditions, manipulation of the VCU disciplinary systems, and for Adam’s death,” his family wrote on Facebook.
“Do not tell us these are just ‘boys.’ Adam was just a boy. He had his whole life ahead of him. He will never have the same opportunities or future these young men will. He will never graduate from college, never get married, never have kids, and never have the chance to grow into the person HE was meant to be. They stole that from him. They stole that from us.”
“VCU continues to mourn the tragic death of Adam Oakes and is grateful to the Richmond Police Department for its investigation,” school officials told the Daily News in a statement Sunday. “VCU is dedicated to continuing its efforts, announced this summer, to promote a safe and welcoming fraternity and sorority life culture for all.”
?BREAKING: EIGHT have been arrested in connection to the fraternity hazing death of VCU freshman Adam Oakes.
Eleven have been indicted. The family tells me they are grateful justice is being achieved for Adam’s death. pic.twitter.com/L9qxHM0qz0
— Tyler Thrasher (@TylerJThrasher) September 24, 2021
VCU suspended Delta Chi in response to Oakes’ death, one day after the fraternity’s national office did the same to its Richmond chapte