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Alcohol is banned and on-campus recruiting halted for two Utah State University fraternities where prosecutors say women were sexually assaulted.
The Logan school's student-run Greek Council handed down the sanctions to Sigma Chi and Pi Kappa Alpha in light of a pair of pending sexual assault cases, a university spokesman said Thursday. The penalty comes as a separate investigation of sexual assault at USU Eastern is underway at the Price campus.
In Logan, the student officials heeded urging from administrators by barring the fraternities from having alcohol in their houses or recruiting on school grounds for a year, said school spokesman Tim Vitale.
"We're expecting the Greek Council to make sure they live up to the sanctions," Vitale said.
Greek Council President Brian Speckhard declined to comment Thursday.
The student group's decision came in August after the arrest of 27-year-old Jason Brian Relopez. Two women testified that he assaulted them when he was a brother at the Sigma Chi fraternity.
His attorney Shannon Demler has said the encounters with both women were consensual.
A 19-year-old woman testified that Relopez raped her several times in July. The second woman, 20, said she had been doing homework with Relopez when they started making out. She said she told him she did not want to have sex but he raped her.
He has since been expelled from the fraternity house and is set to face trial in February on assault and rape charges.
In March, former Pi Kappa Alpha President Ryan Wray, 26, was accused of forcible sexual abuse after admitting to police he inappropriately touched a woman who passed out at a fraternity party when he was looking after partygoers who couldn't take care of themselves.
The national fraternity expelled Wray from the organization, and USU's chapter voluntarily suspended activities but has since restarted.
Demler also represents Wray and has said he is negotiating with prosecutors on a possible plea deal.
Wray was suspended from USU two years ago and has already completed coursework for a degree and moved to Idaho, Demler told The Associated Press.
At the Price campus, Vitale said, two male basketball players and one female player believed to be connected with a report of sexual assault on Sept. 3 have been suspended from athletics as police investigate. All men's basketball activities were suspended Sept. 11; those wider sanctions were lifted Wednesday.
No one has been arrested, and a police report is expected Monday.
The Tribune typically does not identify people who report being a victim of sexual assault.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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