Rutgers Frat House Where Student Was Critically Hurt Has History Of Code Violations

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — A Rutgers University fraternity house where a student was critically injured has had code violations for years and has paid thousands in fines connected to those violations, state records show.

The 19-year-old student was unresponsive early Wednesday when Rutgers University police responded to a 911 call that had been disconnected, authorities said Friday. He was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick and was listed in critical condition on Friday. An update on his condition was not available Saturday.

The student has not been identified.

The home on College Avenue belongs to Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity, and the fraternity was placed on suspension after the student was injured, NJ.com reported. That report said the fraternity was placed on organizational suspension until May and social suspension until Nov. 3.

Authorities were investigating whether the student was injured during a hazing incident, NJ.com reported.

The mother of another student who was at the Alpha Sigma Phi house when the hospitalized student was injured told NJ.com the injury was not from hazing but due to dangerous conditions in the home.

The mother told NJ.com that the injured student had stepped on or leaned into exposed live wires and was shocked while a group was listening to music in the dark, the report said.

A student who tried to help him was shocked as well, she said. Members of the fraternity drove the injured student to the hospital instead of waiting for authorities to answer the 911 call, she said.

Records available from the state Department of Community Affairs show the home is owned by the Rutgers Alumni Association of Alpha Sigma Phi and managed by Clven Property Management. A message left for the representative listed for the Rutgers Alumni Association of Alpha Sigma Phi was not returned Saturday night.

Those records show the property was cited for serious code violations on multiple occasions. There were 11 violations in a report issued in November 2014, but those were cleared in 2016.

In 2020, the property was cited again, this time with 26 violations that included a lack of carbon monoxide detectors in the students' rooms. A reinspection in early 2023 showed the carbon monoxide detectors still had not been installed and only eight of the 2020 violations had been addressed.

The was an attempt to inspect the property again in August 2023 but the inspection did not happen and the fraternity was warned it had to comply and set up an inspection date in 2024.

In April 2024, the property was inspected and cited for 12 violations, with the carbon monoxide detector violations still marked as "unabated" for some of the rooms, meaning they had not been addressed.

At that point the fraternity was fined $9,000 plus reinspection fees because the detectors were not installed, the records show.

In September 2024 the fraternity was inspected again and cited for four violations for things that had not been addressed and it was fined again, this time $5,500 for continuing violations.

The fraternity was fined again in January, this time for $10,000, after a reinspection of previous violations found two that still had not been fixed — one involving flooring in one of the students' rooms and one related to hardware on the doors to the entrance/exit to the house.

In May 2025, the house received a cyclical inspection, looking at the entire house and not just at addressing previous violations. This inspection turned up a host of issues including exposed wires in several rooms along with issues again with the carbon monoxide alarms, resulting in 50 citations.

A reinspection last month showed 19 items remained from the original 50, and the fraternity was fined $1,975, according to the records.

Those remaining items are supposed to be inspected in November, according to the documents.