Former Sig Eps to fight for 'lost' funds

The former members and parents of the Indiana Beta chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon are fighting for money they say is owed to them after the fraternity was kicked off campus last month.\nThe fraternity was closed Dec. 21 by their national organization citing financial problems within the local chapter. \nSince, the former members have tried to get the money from Robert Hanrahan and Fred Prall, the former house owners and Sig Ep alumni, but say they've been "given the runaround."\nThey said they hope that will change soon.\nFormer members will meet at 2:30 p.m. today with IU Student Legal Services, Old National Bank -- which foreclosed on the house in December -- an official from the fraternity's national organization, a University official and the former owners of the house to discuss the problem, said sophomore Joel Riethmiller, former vice president of communications for the chapter.\nRiethmiller said the group will talk about options the students have to get money returned to them from Hanrahan and Prall, both of the local Sig Ep Alumni Board. \nRiethmiller said the former members may decide to take action against the two for misappropriation of funds throughout the year, including a $600 damage deposit that has not been returned to each of the former tenants. \nFollowing the eviction of the house in late December, some house members vandalized the property, causing approximately $5,000-worth of damage to the house, IU Police Department Lt. Jerry Minger told the IDS in a Jan. 10 article.\nBut Riethmiller claims former house members are still owed the remainder of those deposits.\n"They have our money," Riethmiller said. "They don't own the house anymore. They're not making repairs, so they don't need the money."\nHe also said they plan to explore an Indiana ruling that requires landlords to give tenants a 45-day notice before evicting them from a dwelling. He said the former Sig Ep members were only given seven days notice before they were required to leave.\nPrall did not return repeated phone calls to his office Monday.\nRiethmiller said the financial problems stem from the rules Hanrahan set down over the summer as the new president of their Alumni Board.\nHe said Hanrahan made up "crazy" rules that the house hadn't had in years -- including quiet hours and no women allowed in the house after 10 p.m. -- to help the chapter get through restrictions set up by IU, and many of the members didn't like the changes. \nAround 50 members quit the fraternity, which caused the chapter to lose money when only about 30\npeople returned and maintained a 90-person house, Riethmiller said.\nHe said Hanrahan and Prall hadn't planned for the financial loss.\nJulie Klemen, mother of one of the men in the chapter, said Hanrahan and Prall said they would get the Sig Ep National Organization to help with the financial situation at the house for the year to try and get them back on their feet. \nShe said Hanrahan and Prall misled the guys in the house and their parents into believing they would have a secure place to stay for the year.\n"They were only trying to save their own butts," Klemen said. "They led us to believe one thing, and it wasn't exactly the full picture."\nSherry Giffin, another mother of a former member, said the conditions in the house during the fall semester were horrible.\nShe said the heat was regularly turned down to save money, the house's cable was cut off in October, some of the sinks were plugged up and there were toilets that didn't work.\n"The stench was so bad," Giffin said. "The fraternity had no money, and they were doing nothing."\nPrall was in charge of paying the bills, which Giffin said were stacked up from previous years. She said she assumed the fraternity was paying last year's bills with this year's money. \nWhen the national organization was asked to help by the local Sig Ep Alumni Board, Giffin said Hanrahan and Prall were not relaying correct information about the financial situation.\nCraig Templeton, the national director for housing at Sig Ep, said the decision to close the fraternity was made when it looked like the chapter's finances wouldn't make it through the year.\n"From our perspective, it became clear that they weren't going to be able to offer their members housing in the spring," Templeton said. "They just couldn't maintain the house."\nHe said the closing and the ensuing problems with members, parents and the alumni board has been "an ugly situation any way you look at it."\nThe national organization has been requesting all the accounting information from the chapter and alumni board to know who is owed what, Templeton said. He said the organization told the alumni board to have all the files together in the next couple weeks.\n"We are trying to get a handle on the finances to determine what money there is to work with," Templeton said.\nHe said their interest in the situation is to protect the house and hopefully bring the alumni board together and build the house back up.\nBut the former members and their parents said they have a different interest in the situation.\n"We just want our money back," Klemen said.