“You need a code of omertà if you’re trying to create an organization that’s essentially like a criminal organization,” Andrew Lohse said.
Lohse was talking about fraternities â the 36-year-old is a fraternity hazing survivor and the author of “Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy.”
As a Dartmouth student, the whistleblower exposed the stomach-turning he said he endured inside Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
TWO OLE MISS STUDENTS FOUND DEAD AS PACKAGED KRATOM IS RECOVERED AT TWO SITES: OFFICIALS
When recent headlines came to light regarding the mysterious deaths of two students at Ole Miss â one of whom was in a fraternity â and the alleged frat cocaine distribution ring at Penn State, Lohse said he was immediately reminded of his time as a brother.
“For years and years [the last] 10 years, it’s like whenever someone dies in a frat, like that’s when my phone rings,” Lohse told Fox News Digital.
OLE MISS NAMES STUDENTS FOUND DEAD AS OFFICIAL ADDRESSES POTENTIAL FOR FOUL PLAY
One of the Ole Miss students who was found dead this past week, Ryan Strang, was a Phi Delta Theta fraternity brother. He was found at an off-campus home. Authorities found , a commercially available drug that has been derided as “gas station heroin,” at both scenes. However, its role in either death was not immediately clear.
Phi Delta Theta has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
“The loss of two young lives is a profound tragedy,” the fraternity said in a statement, in part. “Phi Delta Theta joins the University of Mississippi and the broader Ole Miss community in mourning Robert and Aidan Hamilton and extending our deepest sympathies to their families, friends, chapter brothers, classmates, and all those who knew and loved them.
“These losses reinforce the importance of a collective commitment to health, safety, and well-being on college campuses today. We encourage the Phi Delta Theta community to keep the Strang family, the Mississippi Alpha Chapter, and everyone affected by these tragic losses in their thoughts.”
Dangers like kratom did not exist when Lohse was in school, he said.
“There was no kratom, no tranq, no smoking bath salts, no fentanyl. Back then, the cocaine was more or less just cocaine. It wasn’t like every time somebody did cocaine they could die.”
OLE MISS TOXICOLOGY REPORTS EXPECTED SOON AND RESULTS MAY TRIGGER ANTI-FENTANYL LAW, OFFICIAL SAYS
At Penn State, prosecutors allege in court documents that pledges were allegedly coerced into cutting and packaging cocaine as part of an alleged organized drug ring led by former Sigma Chi member Agostino Abbatiello.
Lohse said, “When I was reading that the pledges were in the background doing that, I thought that was sort of amazing â but in a bad way, but also extremely brazen.”
PENN STATE COCAINE BUST NETS 14 ARRESTS OVER ALLEGED PLEDGE COKE-CUTTING INDOCTRINATION’ RITUALS
Fraternity culture made more news this past week in , where police said they found roughly 30 partially clothed young men packed inside a sweltering basement, co
