MANHATTAN — The first defendant to plead guilty in connection to the 2013 hazing death of a Baruch student will serve no jail time after being sentenced on conspiracy charges, according to news reports.
Ka-Wing Yuen, 25, was sentenced on Tuesday to five years of probation and was ordered to pay a $100 fine, and must perform 100 days of community service, according to the Daily News, after pleading guilty earlier this month to conspiracy to hinder prosecution by destroying evidence and conspiracy to haze.
Yuen admitted to being part of a plan to destroy evidence related to the death of Chun Hsien “Michael” Deng, who died in December 2013 after taking part in a brutal hazing ritual at a fraternity retreat in the Poconos.
Yuen was one of 37 members or prospective members of the Baruch chapter of Pi Delta Psi who were charged in connection with Deng’s death, and the first to be convicted.
The 37 co-defendants, along with the national fraternity, are charged in Monroe County, Pennsylvania.
Deng died after taking part in a ritual known as the “glass ceiling” in which frat pledges weighed down with sand-filled backpacks trudged through a gauntlet of frat brothers, according to prosecutors. Other pledges managed to make it through relatively unscathed, but Deng was singled out for particularly brutal treatment, including a flying tackle from one member, according to court papers.
Deng slipped into unconsciousness following the beating, and died at a nearby hospital of internal trauma. In the wake of his injuries members of the fraternity, including the national president, actively attempted to obscure the frat’s role in the incident, according to prosecutors.
Four of the brothers who directly attacked Deng were hit with homicide and assault charges, while others, including Yuen, were charged with hazing and hindering prosecution and conspiracy charges for both offenses.
Yuen, who was the first to go to trial, pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charges on Jan. 10 in exchange for prosecutors dropping the hazing and hindering charges.
He faced a maximum of eight years in prison for the charges.
