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Texas State student suing local fraternity claims he was assaulted by some of its members


File image of Texas State University in San Marcos. (CBS Austin)
File image of Texas State University in San Marcos. (CBS Austin)
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A Texas State University student is suing a local fraternity and its national chapter, claiming he was assaulted by some of the fraternity's members.

Cell phone video taken above North Comanche Street in San Marcos shows multiple students involved in an altercation before a group of students start chasing one person and beating them to the ground.

"It's really important to our client and to our client's family that the community see this video," said the Attorney Jay Harvey.

Harvey's company, Winclker & Harvey LLP field the suit on behalf of student Nikolas Panagiotopoulos, who he says is the victim in the video. Harvey tells CBS Austin Panagiotopoulos was accosted in late October after trying to stop a fight between his friend and members of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. The lawsuit says several fraternity members began to "taunt, verbally harass, and/or act aggressively" towards his client because on a mistaken belief that he was part of a different fraternity.

"A large group of members of the fraternity started in on Nick. As he tried to run away, they chased him down the street and continued to attack him," said Harvey.

Harvey said this attack landed his client in the hospital for several weeks with a traumatic brain injury and other adverse effects to his health and daily life at school.

"Head injuries, spinal injuries, still trying to recover," said Harvey. "He's had to take a couple of incompletes as a result of this attack."

A petition filed this week lists Texas State University's Eta Rho Chapter of Pi Kappa Phi, the national chapter and three of the fraternity's members as part of the lawsuit.

"The fraternity's got to learn to exercise some level of control over these members and can't encourage an out of control group of young men as the accepted policy on the way they conduct themselves," said Harvey.

The petition alleges both the local and national chapters have a history of encouraging the consumption and overconsumption of alcohol, hazing and violence.

"We know from their social media pages, their twitter pages, if they don't encourage, they definitely condone excessive if not including underage drinking to excess," Harvey said. "What we're going to have to show is either a lack of control, a lack of institutional control by the fraternity and the local or a culture, an encouraged culture of this type of out of control activity."

CBS Austin reached out to Pi Kappa Phi's national headquarters but has not heard back as of Friday night.

The University tells CBS Austin, "Texas State University is not a party in the lawsuit. As soon as the university was notified of the incident in October 2019, Pi Kappa Phi was suspended."

"I think this case in combination with other cases like it will hopefully be the building blocks for changing the concept of the university Greek society that condones or allows out of control activity," said Harvey.

CBS Austin can confirm at least one of the people in the lawsuit, Kevin Anthony Ayala Jimenez, was arrested with an aggravated assault charge related to this incident.

The lawsuit seeks more than $1 million in damages.

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