Six Rutgers sorority girls — including one from The Bronx — have been charged with putting pledges through a horrific eight-day nightmare of beatings and starvation, authorities said yesterday.
The university suspended the Rutgers chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho, as did the sorority’s national organization in North Carolina, university spokesman Greg Trevor said last night, declining further comment because the matter is “under investigation.”
But one of as many as seven alleged victims described a frightening nightly ritual of paddlings, saying she’d been struck 201 times between Jan. 18 and Monday, The Star-Ledger reported. Others told cops they’d been denied food.
“They told us there was no hazing, that they didn’t believe in it,” the pledge said, telling the newspaper she wanted to join Sigma Gamma Rho because of its history of community service. She said the group was told the beatings would “humble” them and get them to rely on one another.
“At the end, we were supposed to be helping each other,” she said.
By Monday, however, she said she couldn’t lie down without pain, and called her family to take her to a hospital. Trevor said she’s been released.
Those charged with felony aggravated hazing were Llana Warner, 20, of The Bronx; Vanessa Adegbite, 21, of Jersey City; Joana Bernard, 21, of West Orange; Kesha Cheron, 20, of Newark; Shawna Ebanks, 21, of East Orange; and Marie Charles, 21, of West Orange.