The prosecution and a State College police detective on Thursday methodically reviewed video clips from an alcohol-fueled Penn State fraternity party, attempting to show former fraternity brothers’ responsibility for multiple alleged crimes on the night pledge Timothy Piazza sustained fatal injuries.

It was the second day of a preliminary hearing for the second set of former Beta Theta Pi fraternity brothers charged in connection with the events of Feb. 2, 2017, when Piazza and 13 other pledges took part in a bid acceptance night ceremony and social event that prosecutors describe as hazing.

Piazza died from nonrecoverable brain injuries and massive internal bleeding after falling head-first down the basement stairs as a result of intoxication, a medical examiner has previously testified. Fraternity members waited until nearly 12 hours after that fall to call for medical help.

Investigators say Piazza was given 18 alcoholic drinks in a period of 82 minutes and had a blood-alcohol level as high as .35 at the time of his fall. Some of those drinks came during an initiation ceremony dubbed “the gauntlet,” in which pledges went through a drinking obstacle course, consuming beer, wine and vodka in rapid succession.

The 12 defendants who are the subject of this week’s preliminary hearing are not alleged to have taken part in the planning and execution of the gauntlet, but rather, prosecutors contend, forced alcohol on Piazza and other pledges during the party that followed.

They face charges including hazing, furnishing alcohol to minors and related liquor law violations. Five brothers who prosecutors say directly gave Piazza alcohol during the social — Joshua Kurczewski, Ryan Burke, Jonathan Kanzler , Aiden O’Brien and Bohan Song — also are charged with recklessly endangering another person. Another, Braxton Becker, is accused of deleting the basement video which was later recovered and formed the basis of the second set of charges. 

Twelve other defendants in the case have had a variety of misdemeanor charges held over for trial after an initial preliminary hearing last summer and a second hearing on refiled charges that had initially been dismissed. The dismissal of involuntary manslaughter charges against five defendants is being appealed.

On Thursday, Senior Deputy Attorney General Andrew Notaristefano continued direct examination of State College police Det. David Scicchitano as they reviewed video footage that sought to isolate the actions of each defendant. 

Video showed the former fraternity brothers variously stopping or approaching the pledges, 12 of whom were under the age of 21, and holding up beer, wine or liquor for them to drink after some of the pledges, including Piazza, were already showing signs of intoxication. Scicchitano said the fraternity brothers in each case had little interaction with the pledges after giving them the alcohol.

Philip Masorti, attorney for Burke, objected to an early identification of his client, saying that it was impossible to do so in the video shown. District Judge Steven Lachman, who was assigned to the case after District Judge Carmine Prestia became ill on Wednesday, agreed that it was not readily apparent, but allowed Scicchitano to explain he had spent hundreds of hours reviewing the video as well as interviewing witnesses to determine identifications.

The last footage from the party displayed by the prosecution showed Song give beer to two other pledges before holding a bottle of vodka for Piazza to consume.

“Piazza’s staggering really badly at this point,” Scicchitano said. 

After the final drink of vodka, Piazza staggered away and was helped upstairs by Lars Kenyon, who already had charges of hazing bound over. From there, Notaristefano began to show video that has been exhibited in court multiple times, depicting Piazza’s inebriation on the first floor of the house and his failed attempt to open the front door and then staggering toward the basement stairs.

Two minutes after he was seen near the basement steps, video showed Piazza, unconscious, being carried back upstairs to a couch by four fraternity brothers.

Lachman put a stop to the video there.

Though Notaristefano said that continuing to show what happened to Piazza throughout the night was necessary for the charge of reckless endangerment and establishing serious bodily injury and death, Lachman said the 12 defendants at the current hearing are charged based on their actions earlier in the night and that the cause of Piazza’s death was already on the record through medical reports and testimony entered into evidence.

Notaristefano also questioned Scicchitano about evidence around the bid acceptance night a semester earlier, in the fall of 2016. Scicchitano testified about his interview with Kordel Davis, who was a pledge that semester. Davis fell and cut his head after getting drunk on bid acceptance night.

Scicchitano also testified that he learned multiple pledges vomited and that none of the pledges knew exactly what to expect going into the night. All 12 defendants were pledges or brothers that semester, Scicchitano said.

Three other pledges, in addition to Piazza, vomited the night of the 2017 bid acceptance, Scicchitano said. Another fell and appeared to be limping afterward, and another urinated in the hallway near the bedroom of live-in advisor Tim Bream, who until this past February was also employed by Penn State as head athletic trainer for the football team.

Bream testified last year that he was unaware of and did not approve drinking activities at the fraternity. At the hearing in March, Scicchitano said he believed Bream lied on the stand after defense attorneys pointed to video of him walking through the first floor in the early morning hours, in close proximity to where Piazza was on the ground, and text messages that showed brothers had communicated with him about plans for events involving alcohol.

Notaristefano sought to question Scicchitano about text messages between fraternity president Brendan Young and pledgemaster Daniel Casey about the previous semester’s bid acceptance. An objection by defense attorneys who said none of the current defendants were involved with the exchange was sustained by Lachman.

Lachman also sustained objections to questions about a voicemail Piazza left his girlfriend in which he said he knew he’d be getting drunk but suggested he didn’t know exactly what to expect, as well as queries about video showing fraternity members putting a weighted backpack on Piazza after he vomited to keep him from rolling over on his back. Defense attorneys argued again that neither of those involved their clients.

Notaristefano said he was trying to put together a larger puzzle that showed existing fraternity members knew the risks of the drinking associated with bid acceptance night and had their own protocols in place for when pledges became excessively intoxicated. He also said he wanted to show that pledges did not know in advance what the gauntlet and other activities would involve.

“They continued to force alcohol on pledges after they are already intoxicated,” Notaristefano said.

Testimony will continue Thursday afternoon with a focus on the deleted basement video footage.