Hanover Police has charged Ben Donahue '98 with criminal mischief for allegedly shattering a window at Sigma Delta sorority early Thursday morning.
Donahue sustained a severe laceration during the entry, and he was taken by ambulance to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center for treatment.
Sigma Delt Social Chair Allyson Hall '98 said that this was not the first problem the sorority has been faced with in recent months. People illegally entered or vandalized the sorority house seven or eight times Spring term, she said.
Donahue, who was accompanied by an unidentified male student, will appear in Lebanon District Court Aug. 14. The other student was not charged.
In an e-mail message to the members of the sorority, Sigma Delt President Marisa Howe '98 said the men broke the window trying to break into the house.
But Donahue said he was not trying to enter the house when he broke the window.
He wrote in an e-mail message, "On the night in question, I accidently broke a window at Sigma Delt. A few minutes prior to the incident I was inside of Sigma Delt."
"My intention was neither to break the window nor to 'break into' Sigma Delt," he wrote. "I accept full responsibility for my actions and am willing to pay for all damages."
Safety and Security, Hanover Police, the Hanover Fire Department and an ambulance responded to the incident.
Sigma Delt Vice-President Robyn Brown was awoken by the shattered window.
"I heard a large noise, which woke myself and my roommate up," she said. "The two of us went downstairs and we saw two Dartmouth men in our house, one sitting on a chair and another standing next to him."
"There was shattered glass and blood on the floor, she said. "One sister lives on the first floor, so she called Safety and Security."
Howe sent an e-mail message to all the sorority's members warning them against entering the room the men entered.
"Please please please do NOT enter the 1st floor area (the main room) because there is blood and glass everywhere," she wrote.
Hall said the break-in is part of a dismaying trend of vandalism and burglary in the sorority.
"We've had two terms of vandalism and break-ins. In the spring our house was broken into seven or eight times," she said. "We've had so much abuse of sisters we had to hire bouncers" for parties.
"During Senior Week people let out all five of our fire extinguishers in the basement," she said. "During our formal, a window was punched through three times."
"What troubles us is that that is an acceptable excuse: we were drunk," she said.
