Frat pres. denies wrong doing The Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity is being investigated by the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs and the Judicial Inquiry Office, according to the fraternity's president, Gregg Adelman. "They're looking for information," Adelman said, adding that recent incidents which are not "hazing related" have led the University to take a close look at how the fraternity initiates new brothers. "[The] University took that as an initiative to investigate into our pledge program, and as far as I know, they have found nothing," the College sophomore said. "They've been doing this for four weeks and they haven't issued a formal complaint." Interfraternity Council President Hayden Horowitz, a College junior, said last night he knew of the investigation. "I know OFSA was looking into something [and] I don't know whether it was substantiated or not," he said. No one from OFSA or the JIO could be reached for comment yesterday. One recent occurrence which Adelman said may have made the University suspicious of the fraternity is an incident over spring break in which a pledge became very ill during an AEPi pledge trip to Cancun, Mexico. In that incident, College freshman Austin Lieb said he merely got "Montezuma's Revenge," and that his illness is in no way related to hazing. "Ninety-nine percent of the people in Cancun get sick," Lieb said, adding that "it's not illegal to drink in Mexico." College freshman Danny Lobel agreed with Lieb's account. "I was in Cancun," Lobel said. "Austin got some type of bacterial infection and drinking in the bars made it worse. Pledging was absolutely not involved in Austin Lieb's case." Horowitz said although he does not have very much information about any specific incidents involving the fraternity, he thinks OFSA is investigating something that happened after spring break, and not during it. Horowitz said he would look into the matter. And everyone involved with AEPi says there was no hazing in Cancun or during Hell Week at the University. "There was no hazing in Cancun," Adelman said. "As far as I know, we are not guilty of hazing." He said the pledge process ceased during the trip to discourage hazing. "We were pledges, but we didn't have any responsibilities to the house," Lobel said. "We were 'passive pledges'." Adelman said he thinks someone may be passing on false information to the OFSA and the JIO in an effort to smear AEPi. He cited an incident which happened earlier this year. "We got a prank call from someone saying he was an Assistant District Attorney Charles Gallagher [who] said that he was going to raid the house the next morning," he said. Adelman added that he contacted Gallagher, who said he had made no such phone call. "We've been a good fraternity," he said. "We've had no hazing violations or social violations for the last four years."
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