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15th May 2024
03:16pm BST
A former University of Missouri student will spend six months in jail after pleading guilty to hazing another student by forcing him to drink so much alcohol that he was left permanently blind and unable to speak or walk.
Ryan P. Delanty left Danny Santulli partially blind after forcing him to drink an entire 1.75 liter bottle of Tito's vodka and force-feeding him beer through a tube at a Phi Gamma Delta fraternity event on the night of 20th October 2021.
Delanty, of Manchester, Missouri, pleaded guilty in a Boone County court to supplying liquor to a minor and misdemeanor hazing.
As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors recommended a six-month jail sentence followed by six months of house arrest, beginning on May 24th.
Harrowing footage from the night was played in court, and showed freshman Santulli passed out on a sofa inside the frat house.
Clips from earlier in the night showed Santulli taking part in party games at the residence, before being force fed alcohol through a tube in front of a crowd of party-goers.
The following clip showed Santulli being helped onto the couch in an almost unresponsive state, before shortly after flopping onto the floor.
When his frat brothers realized he was seriously ill, they picked him up and carried him to a car to get him to the hospital.
By the time he got there, he had stopped breathing for long enough to cause severe brain damage.
Authorities said his blood alcohol content was 0.486, six times the legal limit.
Sallunti now lives at home with his parents and requires around the clock care. His family estimates his medical bills are in excess of $2 million.
The Phi Gamma Delta has since been shut down, and Santulli's family settled a civil lawsuit against the fraternity and 23 members in 2022.
According to the lawsuit, the fraternity leaders wanted to make the night one 'the pledges wouldn't forget', and new pledges had bottles of Tito's taped to their hands and were branded 'p*****s' if they stopped drinking.
Danny had been at their 'beck and call' for a month as part of the grueling hazing process, and had apparently complained to his sister two nights before the incident that he had 'had enough'.
HHe was sleep deprived, was having to buy things for the fraternity brothers with his own money and was repeatedly ordered to clean the brothers' rooms and bring food, alcohol and marijuana to them at all hours of the night," the lawsuit read.
"Making matters worse, during the pledging process, Danny had been ordered to climb inside of a trash can that had broken glass in it."
His family had urged him to leave the fraternity, but he didn't want to be considered a 'quitter'.
Three other fraternity members, Samuel Gandhi, Alec Wetzler and Thomas Shultz of Chesterfield, Missouri, pleaded guilty in April to supplying liquor to a minor.
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