A Centre County judge has ordered the reinstatement of charges and a new preliminary hearing for eight former Beta Theta Pi brothers, according to a report by WJAC-TV.

President Judge Pamela Ruest on Monday granted the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General’s petition to reinstate the charges, including counts of involuntary manslaughter against five defendants, and order a different magisterial district judge to preside over the hearing.

District Judge Carmine Prestia will oversee the new hearing on July 23, according to WJAC. The eight defendants are among 24 still facing charges in connection with the February 2017 death of Penn State fraternity pledge Timothy Piazza, who sustained fatal injuries after falling during an alcohol-fueled initiation event prosecutors have described as hazing.

After a preliminary hearing in March, District Judge Allen Sinclair dismissed the majority of charges against 11 defendants. In most cases, it was the second time Sinclair the charges were dismissed, having first tossed them after a preliminary hearing last summer.

Following that first preliminary hearing in 2017, then-District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller refiled many of the charges and sought a different district judge to oversee a new hearing, a request that was denied at the time. New District Attorney Bernie Cantorna, elected in November, turned the case over to the attorney general’s office citing an undisclosed conflict of interest.

The AG’s office dropped some charges, added others and presented a new theory of the case at the March hearing. After Sinclair again dismissed many of the charges — which in addition to involuntary manslaughter also included some counts of recklessly endangering another person, hazing and furnishing alcohol to minors — prosecutors appealed the decisions on eight defendants to the Court of Common Pleas.

Ruest ruled at the end of May that the decision to dismiss charges could not be overturned on appeal, but that prosecutors could seek to have Sinclair reinstate the charges, and failing that, to seek assignment of a different district judge.

On June 7, Sinclair declined to sign the refiled criminal complaints.

Prosecutors filed a petition on June 11, stating Sinclair had committed errors of law in dismissing the charges and asking for a new judge to be assigned. 

“The Commonwealth in good faith has alleged improper dismissal by Magisterial District Judge Allen Sinclair,” Ruest’s order stated.

This will be the fourth preliminary hearing in the case. A hearing for the first 18 defendants was held over the course of last summer, and the March hearing was on new and refiled charges against 11 of the original defendants. The third hearing, held in May and overseen by District Judge Steven Lachman, was held in May for a second set of defendants who were charged in November. That hearing ended with the most serious charges of reckless endangerment dismissed. Prosecutors refiled charges of reckless endangerment and tampering with evidence against two defendants from that hearing, and they due back in court on July 11.

A trial for 14 defendants in the case is scheduled to begin in August.