At Penn State, being accepted into a fraternity meant undergoing tests. No one outside knew what they were.
According to the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, inside the houses of Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi in State College, some pledges weren’t carrying boxes or cleaning bathrooms as part of their initiation. They were cutting and packaging cocaine.
The investigation identifies Agostino Abbatiello, 24, and Thomas Robinson, 23, as the leaders of the operation. Between 2023 and 2024, they traveled to Philadelphia and New York to obtain the drugs and distributed them from the very rooms where their fraternity brothers lived.
A witness testified before the grand jury that they had paid more than 50.000 dollars for drugs from Abbatiello.
A total of 14 people were charged; 13 were students.
When police arrived at Robinson’s room in December 2024, he thought it was a prank by his fraternity brothers.
It wasn’t.
The twist came with the 14th defendant: Paul Robinson, Thomas’s father and an attorney in Pittsburgh, who was accused of hiding a safe containing drugs and money to protect his son.
Penn State suspended the Delta Upsilon chapter. Sigma Chi wasn’t even recognized by the university.
The cover lasted two years. It took a raid for the truth to emerge.
