College student left unable to speak after fraternity hazing, Missouri lawsuit says

When incoming freshman Daniel Santulli was recruited to join the University of Missouri chapter of Phi Gamma Delta, he was “wooed with promises of friendship and brotherhood” as the fraternity endorsed values of morality, friendship and excellence.

But as soon as Santulli “happily” became a pledge for the fraternity, he “was little more than a serf,” or servant, for the older Chi Mu fraternity members, his legal team says.

He suffered through a month of abuse and hazing in the fall of 2021, the lawyers say, before the pressure to drink a full bottle of vodka during “Pledge Dad Reveal Night” led to severe brain damage.

Now more than 100 days later, Santulli remains unaware of his surroundings and unable to speak, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the teen and his family.

“This story is one of the most tragic hazing cases we’ve ever encountered,” legal team Stewart Tilghman Fox Bianchi & Cain, P.A said in a news release regarding the lawsuit filed Thursday, Jan. 27 — the day Santulli turned 19 — against the national fraternity, several leadership members of the Chi Mu chapter and its board of chapter advisors.

“A young man has been robbed of his future — and a family has been robbed of their son and brother,” the firm said. “We are fighting for this family.”

The firm’s lawsuit accuses the defendants of negligence, and the legal team is asking for a jury trial for damages.

Phi Gamma Delta Executive Director Rob Caudill says the fraternity’s “thoughts and prayers” are with the Santulli family as staff members review the civil complaint.

“The chapter at the University of Missouri is suspended by the International Fraternity and we continue to provide support and cooperation when requested by local authorities as they pursue their investigation,” he said in a statement to McClatchy News. “We expect all chapters and members to follow the law and abide by the Fraternity’s policies which prohibit hazing and the provision of alcohol to minors.”

The lawyers representing Santulli say the teen was unaware of the Chi Mu chapter’s “sordid history” in recent years or its six campus violations, five connected to alcohol, before he became a pledge.

Some of the early abuse Santulli faced included buying things for other members with his own money, cleaning other fraternity brothers’ rooms and serving them alcohol and marijuana “at all hours of the night,” according to the lawsuit.

“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 says. “As a result, he sustained a bad cut to his foot and had to go to the hospital for stitches and crutches.”

The constant demands led to falling grades for the “promising student,” lawyers say, as the fraternity members ignored the pledge’s mental and physical health.

“The cumulative attacks on Danny’s dignity, autonomy, and physical safety had a debilitating effect on him,” his legal team says. “His grades were suffering, he was sleep-deprived, and he suffered from constant stress; worst of all, he was isolated since none of the fraternity brothers showed concern for his deteriorating condition.”

Two days before Santulli would be found unresponsive, on Oct. 17, the teen’s sister visited him at the fraternity house.

“For the first time in his life, he broke down and cried to her,” the lawsuit says. “He said he was exhausted, that he could not take it anymore and his sister realized that he was suffering from overwhelming depression and fatigue.”

Unable to console him, the lawsuit says his sister had their parents speak to him. They tried to get their son to leave the fraternity.

“Danny, however, was not a quitter and, like so many pledges before him, did not want to be humiliated and ridiculed by those whose ranks he was trying to join,” according to the lawsuit. “The defendants knew this and had seen it all before. They knew that, with enough peer pressure, Danny would not quit and would reluctantly submit to the traditions of ‘Pledge Dad Reveal Night’ and that is exactly what happened.”

The evening of Oct. 19, the fraternity pledge was handed “the family bottle” of Tito’s Handmade Vodka by his pledge dad and told to drink it.

“When Danny tried to stop, he was told to continue because they ‘didn’t want any p------ around’ and, as a result, he kept drinking,” the lawsuit says.

He passed out sometime before midnight, the lawsuit says, and he remained that way until a fraternity member found him partially off the couch at about midnight.

With pale skin and blue lips, the legal team says someone made a decision to drive him to a hospital instead of calling 911.

Hospital staff went to the car and found Santulli wasn’t breathing and was in cardiac arrest, according to the lawsuit. CPR helped restart his heart, and he was rushed to the intensive care unit and placed on a ventilator. There, medical staff tested his blood and found he had a blood alcohol content of 0.468 — more than 5 times over the legal limit.

He was removed from the ventilator when he started breathing on his own days later, the lawsuit says, but he is still unresponsive, unaware of his surroundings and unable to communicate. Santulli suffers a “significant injury to his brain.”

This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 4:39 PM with the headline "College student left unable to speak after fraternity hazing, Missouri lawsuit says."