Fraternity Issues Detailed Denial of Party Rape

In their first detailed response to charges that an 18-year-old freshman was raped at a San Diego State University fraternity party last November, leaders of the Pi Kappa Alpha claimed Wednesday that the woman “voluntarily” had sex in a private bedroom after knowingly drinking alcohol and beer and smoking marijuana during the evening.

The claims, contained in a three-page letter intended for fraternity members, pledges and alumni, directly contradict campus police charges that the Delta Gamma sorority member became intoxicated after drinking what she believed to be non-alcoholic punch and was sexually assaulted by three men.

The letter, obtained by The Times Wednesday from a Pi Kappa Alpha alumnus, became public a day before SDSU was scheduled to announce the results of hearings into a wide variety of administrative charges against the fraternity and the sorority. Both could be forced to shut down.

An attorney representing the freshman’s family denounced the fraternity’s claims as “a media blitz to convince the grand jury not to do anything.” The family has asked the county grand jury to investigate the matter because Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller in December declined to file criminal charges in the case, said James P. Collins, attorney for the unidentified freshman and her family.

The woman, who claimed she was raped during the early morning hours of Nov. 15, was examined at Grossmont Hospital later that day before contacting police.

Fraternity attorney V. Frank Asaro said the five “findings” compiled in the letter by himself and two fraternity leaders are based on the confidential report written by SDSU’s division of student affairs and the testimony of 45 witnesses in closed-door hearings held by a university panel Jan. 21-23. The three had access to the report and they had defended the fraternity during the hearings.

Asaro said the letter was written by Ken Smerz, the fraternity’s director of chapter affairs; fraternity President Jeff Gattas, who signed the letter, and himself. The three wrote the letter because “actives, alumni and pledges have been asking what happened on that night. It’s been a long time, and they want the information and we’re giving it to them.”

The letter claims that “the subject woman was not taken advantage of sexually by members of the fraternity.”

It states that “on the night in question the subject woman voluntarily entered the private quarters of a fraternity member and engaged voluntarily in heavy sexual contact. A sorority pledge left the subject woman and her fraternity companion alone in the room because, judging from their physical actions and contact she thought they were going to become intimate.”

The letter also claims that the woman was seen the same evening in the bunk with one or more other men.

Asaro and Smerz refused to elaborate on that passage.

Collins, the family’s attorney, scoffed at the suggestion that the woman had sex voluntarily. Noting doctors’ reports showing that the woman was a virgin prior to the party, Collins said that “a young 18-year-old does not lose her virginity in (three) different sex acts with people watching. Nobody believes that. It just doesn’t happen that way.”

Asked about the fraternity’s assertion that the woman engaged in the sexual acts voluntarily, campus Police Chief John Carpenter said Wednesday, “That’s untrue.” He said police have interviewed the other sorority pledge mentioned in the letter but would not comment on what she told them.

Campus police have said that the freshman was sexually assaulted by three men--one of whom had intercourse with her--while other men watched either through windows or from places in the room during the early morning of Nov. 15. Carpenter on Wednesday repeated his longstanding claim that his investigators have gathered enough evidence to bring charges against three fraternity men for sexual assault.

In an open letter published in the campus newspaper Dec. 16, the freshman’s mother wrote that “my daughter’s youth and innocence have been stolen from her. Her life will never have that carefree happiness she once took for granted. . . . She has experienced nightmares, sobbing and sleepless nights since this has happened.” The woman has withdrawn from SDSU and did not appear at last month’s hearings.

The fraternity letter also claims that “the subject woman drank alcoholic beverages at the ‘exchange’ (party) knowing full well what she was doing. She voluntarily engaged in a beer drinking game in the privately rented quarters of a fraternity member with the door closed, out of the jurisdiction and control of the general fraternity. The subject woman had voluntarily smoked marijuana that night.”

That claim disputes the woman’s statements to police that she had become woozy after drinking punch that she believed did not contain alcohol, and asked to be taken to a bedroom where she could lie down. Carpenter said again Wednesday that the woman was not aware that the punch was spiked with alcohol until after she had drunk a cup and was warned by a sorority sister.

Smerz, the fraternity’s director of chapter affairs, said that “there is no way she could not know” that the punch contained alcohol, in part because non-alcoholic soft drinks and hot chocolate were available and because “it is common knowledge throughout the fraternity system that if you go to a party and there is punch, it is going to be spiked. It is common knowledge throughout the sorority system that punch is spiked.”

The letter also disputes claims by campus police that a fraternity member took photographs of the woman while she was in the bedroom, an allegation that Carpenter said is based on statements taken by police.

Carpenter said police have never seen the photographs and assume they were destroyed by fraternity members. “I haven’t seen the pictures. I can’t say for sure what they were,” Carpenter said.

In addition to his charges that the photos had been destroyed, Carpenter charged that fraternity members put a bloody bed sheet in a dumpster--where it was found by university police--and refused to talk to police for eight days on the advice of their lawyers.

The letter states that “members and pledges of the fraternity did not photograph the woman or her sexual engagements.” Asaro said that the photographs showed “fraternity brothers mooning the camera in the bedroom” and the woman “was off to the side and she was not involved in the photographs.”

Asaro said his statements were based on testimony during the hearings “from people who have seen the photographs.” The letter states that the fraternity member who took the photos has been suspended from Pi Kappa Alpha for the remainder of 1986.