In the wake of a $250,000 lawsuit, allegations of rape and vandalism have surfaced against the frat. The Delta Tau Delta fraternity -- which was sued in 1998 by the owner of a neighboring building who claimed that fraternity brothers vandalized his building -- has been involved in other incidents of vandalism and an allegation of date rape, according to depositions recently taken in the suit Robert Herdelin, who until recently owned the building at 3901 Walnut Street which houses College Buffet, filed the lawsuit for $250,000 against Penn and DTD in the fall of 1998. At the time, he alleged that his property was damaged by DTD brothers, who he said threw bottles and trash on the roof. Now, following the depositions of Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Director Scott Reikofski, OFSA Program Coordinator Larry Moses and DTD brother and Wharton senior Adam Keil, allegations of the rape of a Beaver College student and the vandalism of Chestnut Hall by DTD brothers have come to the forefront. Copies of the depositions were released by Herdelin. Both Reikofski and Moses refused to comment on the lawsuit, as did their lawyer. DTD President and Wharton junior Robert Cuthrell could not be reached for comment. Herdelin originally filed the lawsuit as a result of the damage to his building's roof and air-conditioning system, which he believes was caused by DTD brothers throwing trash and bottles from their windows. It is set to go to trial in June. According to Moses' deposition, which he gave two weeks ago, he responded to complaints from Herdelin about damage to his building on two separate occasions last fall. The two went to the fraternity house to determine whether or not DTD was the source of the damage. During Moses' and Herdelin's second meeting, Herdelin went up to the roof of College Buffet and retrieved a bag of trash. According to Moses' deposition, the bag contained the phone bills of DTD brother and Engineering senior Joshua Loyd, then a junior. "When confronted with this evidence, the student stupidly denied the actions," Reikofski wrote in an e-mail to administrators, he said in the deposition. "It's got his name on it, he's got to know something about it," Reikofski said he wrote in the e-mail. Herdelin also claims that DTD brothers threw water balloons from a window of their house, one of which broke the windshield of the car of one of College Buffet's owners. Another balloon allegedly missed the head of the other owner "by inches," according to Herdelin. DTD agreed to pay for the broken windshield, but Herdelin claims that the owners of College Buffet never received the check. "It's been a year and a half," he said. "Even if it goes by way of China, it's going to get there in a year and a half." After Herdelin filed the lawsuit, he said he learned of a date rape allegation by a Beaver College student involving DTD. Reikofski confirmed the allegation in his deposition. "There was a case about four years ago where a young woman attended a Delta Tau Delta party, got particularly inebriated and was questioning whether or not she had been a victim of date rape," Reikofski said in his deposition. But Reikofski added that "it turns out that nothing came from that. There wasn't even any followup from her comments or anything." In his deposition, Reikofski acknowledged that serving alcohol to an underage person is a violation of DTD's charter, University regulations and state law. He also said that the University took no action against DTD for the violation. Reikofski also talked about a more recent violation involving DTD brothers. "There was an incident that just occurred last summer, late last summer, where they were shooting water balloons at Chestnut Hall and one of them went through a window and caused some damage," Reikofski said in his deposition. According to Herdelin, the balloon cracked a statue in Chestnut Hall. "If it's going to break a statue, it's going to break someone's head," Herdelin said. "It's amazing that nobody got killed."
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