"Animal House" In News Again
ON JUNE 8, THE THURSDAY OF Senior Week and three days before Commencement 2006, Hanover police conducted a six-hour raid of Alpha Delta house. News of the "Animal House" search was reported in more than 1,000 newspapers nationwide in the days that followed.
On June 10 The Dartmouth reported that police had been searching for an alleged sex video created by an AD brother who graduated in 2003, but because the documents related to the search warrant were sealed, Hanover Police Chief Nicholas Giaccone could neither confirm nor deny the sex tape allegations.
Two AD brothers present during the raid were arrested on charges of possession of a contolled substance, presumed to be marijuana. In the end, however, aside from the ancillary drug charges leveled against the two individuals, the Hanover police have informed AD attorney George Ostler '77 that they will not file any charges against the fraternity or its members, according to John Engelman '68, AD alumni advisor and president of the AD alumni corporation.
"At this point we have not come up with the item that we were specifically looking for," Giaccone told DAM in late July. "Our investigation is pretty much over."
"The police did their job as they saw it," Engelman says. "There was no substance to the allegation, so now we move on." Before completely forgetting the incident, however, Engelman and AD brothers hope to restore their fraternity's reputation.
"It is likely that AD will submit a letter or op-ed to The Dartmouth and Valley News, explaining in more detail the entire story and attempting to regain the good name of the fraternity," Engelman says.
