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The parents of Daniel Santulli, 19, (pictured) sued the University of Missouri’s Phi Gamma Delta fraternity after their son was found in cardiac arrest inside a car
The family of a University of Missouri student who is now brain damaged, blind and unable to walk or talk are seeking criminal charges against some of those involved in what his attorneys describe as the ‘worst hazing case’ America has ever seen.
Danny Santulli, 19, was a student at the school and a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity when he was hazed at an October party.
He was force-fed beer through a tube and told to down an entire bottle of vodka by his ‘fraternity fathers’.
When he passed out and went into cardiac arrest, they dumped him outside a hospital.
Now, he is unlikely to walk, talk or see again. His mother has quit her banking job to care for him full time.
The family previously sued the fraternity and 22 people over the incident but no one has ever been criminally charged with hazing.
Now, having reviewed surveillance footage from the night in question and read the 123-page police report, the family is launching legal action against two of the boys involved; Samuel Gandhi and Alec Wetzler.
According to the lawsuit, they wanted to make the night one ‘the pledges wouldn’t forget’ so filled the frat house with ‘cocaine, marijuana and alcohol’.
The new pledges had family-sized bottles of Tito’s taped to their hands and were branded ‘p*****s’ if they stopped drinking, according to documents reviewed by DailyMail.com.
Wetzler has been charged criminally with providing alcohol to a minor but Santulli’s lawyer, David Bianchi, tells DailyMail.com the family wants him and others to be charged with hazing.
‘This is the worst fraternity hazing case ever in the US in terms of injury. You can’t be any worse injured and still be alive,’ Bianchi said.
He added that Danny’s prognosis is ‘grim’.
‘He’s got massive brain damage, he’s blind, he cant walk.. it’s unlikely there will ever be any material change.’
The national fraternity and university both suspended the Missouri chapter following Santulli’s hospitalization
The parents have settled a lawsuit with 22 defendants and the fraternity, who have now been banned from campus for repeated violations.
On Monday, Bianchi sought in a motion to add fraternity brothers Gandhi and Wetzler in an amended petition, which was approved by Judge Joshua Devine.=
According to the lawsuit, the fraternity brothers gave Danny a family-sized handle of Tito’s vodka and told him to finish it throughout the night.
He had, at that point, been at their ‘beck and call’ for a month as part of the grueling hazing process.
‘He 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 claimed that Santulli (pictured) and the rest of his pledge class were each forced to drink a bottle of hard liquor, given to them by their ‘pledge fathers’
‘Making matters worse, during the pledging process, Danny had been ordered to climb inside of a trash can that had broken glass in it,’ the lawsuit reads.
Two nights before the incident, Danny cried to his sister that he’d had enough, the lawsuit claims.
His family told him to quit the fraternity but he said he didn’t want to because he ‘wasn’t a quitter.’
On the night of the hazing, the lawsuit says Weltzer stood on a chair ‘looking for a target’ and spotted Danny. He then forced him to drink a beer via a tube, then made him return to his family-sized bottle of Tito’s.
The petition alleges Wetzler put a tube into Santulli’s mouth and poured beer down his throat, coercing him to drink an excessive amount of alcohol.
Gandhi then walked away from Santulli after initially trying to assist him when it was clear that the freshman was dangerously intoxicated, Bianchi claims.
He walked into the room at 12.17am and saw Santulli had not moved from where he left him, the lawsuit alleges.
The 19-year-old’s blood-alcohol content was 0.486 percent, more than six times the legal limit for driving.
According to the lawsuit, the frat boys from The University of Missouri (shown) were already under caution for a previous hazing incident
The amended petition states: ‘At 12.28am, Danny slid partly off of the couch and ended up with his face on the floor but he had no voluntary control of his arms or legs and remained there until someone passing through the room saw him and put him back on the couch.
His skin was pale and his lips were blue, yet no one called 911′.
Instead, they drove him to the hospital in one of the other pledge’s cars where he was then taken into ICU.
Criminal charges have been filed against Wetzler for misdemeanor counts of supplying alcohol to a minor and possession of alcohol by a minor.
Fraternity member Ryan Delanty had been designated Santulli’s ‘pledge dad’ at the hazing.
He allegedly sent a text to a friend at 10.57pm to a friend saying: ‘My son is dead.’
The friend replied asking what had happened and Delanty answered: ‘I left him’.
Delanty was previously sued along with 23 others. That lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.
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