A third defendant had pleaded guilty in the case involving the hazing death of Bowling Green State University student Stone Foltz.
Wood County Prosecutor Paul Dobson issued a press release about the plea.
On Friday, Jarrett Prizel appeared before Wood County Common Pleas Judge Joel Kuhlman and pleaded guilty to reckless homicide and eight counts of misdemeanor hazing.
The reckless homicide charge had been amended from involuntary manslaughter. Both are third-degree felonies.
Dobson dismissed a number of other misdemeanors involving the provision of alcohol to underage individuals.
Prizel, 20, is one of eight men who have been indicted by a Wood County grand jury on various misdemeanor and felony charges, including involuntary manslaughter, felonious assault, tampering with evidence, hazing, and obstructing justice.
Prizel, from up-state New York, had been part of a March 4, 2021 fraternity event that included having new members, or pledges, drink copious amounts of alcohol.
Prizel had taken charge of the new members the night of the event when he had been asked by another member to do so, Dobson said. He led the new members into the event, where they were presented with the bottles they were expected to drink.
Dobson said that Stone Foltz consumed a 1-liter bottle of bourbon during the event, after which he was taken back to his apartment and left alone there, where he fell into unconsciousness. He was later found by a roommate and ultimately emergency medical personnel were called.
Foltz was taken to Wood County Hospital and then transported to Toledo Hospital, where he died on March 7, never regaining consciousness. The Lucas County Coroner ruled his death as “fatal ethanol intoxication during hazing incident.”
Last fall, Aaron Lehane and Niall Sweeney entered pleas.
Lehane, 22, Bowling Green, pleaded to multiple misdemeanor offenses while Sweeney, 22, Erie, Pennsylvania, pleaded to tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony.
Prizel’s is the first plea of the case which directly takes responsibility for Foltz’s death, Dobson said.
“While we were pleased to get the first couple of men to take responsibility for what happened that night, it was important that people started taking responsibility for what happened to Stone,” Dobson said. “I am proud and humbled to have met the Foltzes. But the father part of me wishes I had never met them. And I know they wish they had never met me. So I want this to stop. I never want a prosecutor to meet a parent under these terrible circumstances again.”
The Foltz family issued a statement: “We continue to be grateful to Paul Dobson and the prosecutor’s office for continuing to identify the facts and hold those accountable for their actions in Stone’s death.”
Five co-defendants remain in the case, which is scheduled to go to trial before Kuhlman starting May 16.
