Fayette grand jury declines felony charges against 3 UK students caught in frat brawl
A Fayette County grand jury declined this week to charge three University of Kentucky fraternity brothers involved in a dispute with a rival fraternity with felony second-degree burglary charges.
David Roth, 21, Dylan Carrington, 22, and Colin Malloy, 20, now each face misdemeanor criminal trespassing and criminal mischief charges, according to court records.
The case has been returned to Fayette District Court. The trio’s next court appearance is April 21.
Fred Peters, a lawyer for the three Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity brothers, said Friday his clients should not have been charged with a felony burglary charge.
“This was a very poorly investigated case,” Peters said. The dispute between the Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Delta Sigma Phi fraternities resulted in two physically violent brawls in September.
According to a Lexington Police report, the three students are accused of being among a crowd of over 50 people reportedly associated with Sigma Alpha Epsilon that allegedly busted through a door and window of a Waller Avenue house being rented by Delta Sigma Phi members.
But Peters said there was a previous incident where Delta Sigma Phi members surrounded a few members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, resulting in several serious injuries of Sigma Alpha Epsilon members, including a broken jaw.
“No member of Delta Sigma Phi has been charged,” Peters said.
Upon arriving on the scene of the altercation at 3 a.m. Sept. 25, officers spoke to some “visibly intoxicated” people at a house in the 100-block of Waller. Nine people in the house said they were members of Delta Sigma Phi and told police that a feud over near-campus rental property had escalated into two brawls that night.
The dispute over rental property began after members of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity tried to slip into the leases of two houses on Crescent Avenue that were being rented by Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members, the police report stated. The Delta Sigma Phi members in the house on Waller Avenue said they’d been targeted by the other fraternity in retaliation.
The Delta Sigma Phi members told police that they had won the first altercation which occurred at the Waller house that night, but a large crowd of people reportedly associated with Sigma Alpha Epsilon returned later to the house, allegedly broke a window, kicked in the door and began smashing property within the house.
While talking to police, one resident of the Waller house said he saw Roth, Carrington and Malloy as part of the crowd who broke in, but officers could not locate the three students that night.
The late-September altercations between the two fraternities resulted in the six-year suspension of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and the one-year suspension of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity by university disciplinary officials.
