A third defendant has pled in the case involving the death of BGSU student Stone Foltz, Wood County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Dobson announced today (April 22).
Jarrett Prizel appeared before Wood County Common Pleas Judge Joel Kuhlman and pled guilty to Reckless Homicide and eight counts of misdemeanor Hazing.
The Reckless Homicide charge had been amended from Involuntary Manslaughter. Both are felonies of the third degree. Dobson dismissed a number of other misdemeanors involving
the provision of alcohol to underage individuals.
Prizel is one of eight individuals who have been indicted by the Wood County Grand Jury on various misdemeanor and felony charges, including Involuntary Manslaughter, Felonious Assault, Tampering with Evidence, Hazing, and Obstructing Justice.
Like his co-defendants, Prizel, from Olean, in the Southern Tier of New York State, had been part of a fraternity event on March 4, 2021 that included having new members, or pledges, drink copious amounts of alcohol.
According to the County Prosecutor’s statement at the hearing, Prizel had taken charge of the new members the night of the event when he had been asked by another member to do so. He led the new members into the event, where they were presented with the bottles they were expected to drink.
Dobson stated 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 The 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, two other individuals, Aaron Lehane and Niall Sweeney entered pleas in from the incident. Lehane pled to multiple misdemeanor offenses while Sweeney pled to Tampering with Evidence, a felony of the third degree. However, Prizel’s is the first plea of the case which directly takes responsibility for Stone Foltz’s death.
“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 stated. “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.”
Five co-defendants remain in the case, which is scheduled to go to trial before Judge Kuhlman starting May 16.
