COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) – Two members of a now-shuttered fraternity at the University of Missouri have been sentenced to five years of probation for breaking one student’s jaw and knocking out another’s tooth.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reports 21-year-old Nikolas Childress, of Forest Park, Illinois, and 21-year-old Zachary Barabasz, of Columbia, were sentenced Monday for charges of third and fourth-degree assault.
The two victims, freshmen Sean Freihaut and Benjamin Poss, alleged in a lawsuit Childress and Barabasz were freshmen pledges living in the Sigma Phi Epsilon at the time of the September 2017 attack. The suit says it was required as part of a hazing ritual.
The national Sigma Phi Epsilon organization subsequently closed the Columbia chapter. The chapter has denied responsibility and argued against allowing punitive damages to be awarded.
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