Alpha Epsilon Pi’s off-campus house was raided by police Wednesday night in Madison, Wisconsin.
Officers discovered 30 teenage pledges, mostly undressed and covered in condiments, crammed into a sweltering basement that Madison Police described as filthy. The fraternity, which has no recognized standing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was allegedly conducting a hazing ritual when law enforcement intervened.
The organization was formally severed from UW-Madison nearly a decade ago following repeated alcohol violations, university records show. A 2013 incident proved pivotal: a party where a 17-year-old boy and another guest became so intoxicated they required medical detoxification. That episode landed Alpha Epsilon Pi on probation with the university.
Even that disciplinary status failed to curb the chapter’s behavior. The university documented four additional violations involving events and alcohol during periods when the organization was suspended or under alcohol restriction. “Subsequently, the organization was found responsible for four additional incidents involving events and/or alcohol while it was suspended or on alcohol restriction,” the university wrote in its records.
UW-Madison terminated its relationship with Alpha Epsilon Pi in 2015, yet the group continued operating an off-campus presence in the college town. The Wednesday raid suggests those operations persisted with the same patterns that drew official scrutiny years earlier.
The current pledges found in the basement during the police raid were reportedly teenagers, though their exact ages and whether any matched the 17-year-old from the 2013 incident were not immediately disclosed. The condiments smeared on their bodies and the basement’s described conditions — hot and unclean — point to ritualistic hazing practices rather than a standard social gathering.
Madison Police announced the raid findings but have not yet detailed what charges, if any, will follow against individual members or the organization itself. The status of the 30 pledges following the discovery also remained unclear.
The fraternity’s trajectory from recognized campus organization to repeated rule-breaker to banned group operating in the shadows mirrors patterns seen at other universities where Greek life persists despite official sanctions. Alpha Epsilon Pi’s national organization did not immediately issue a statement regarding the Madison chapter’s latest incident.
The 2015 expulsion was the culmination of a two-year disciplinary process that began with the detox hospitalizations. University officials at that time determined the chapter’s conduct warranted permanent disaffiliation rather than further probationary chances.