Prosecutors today upgraded the charges facing 10 former FAMU band members to manslaughter in the hazing death of drum major Robert Champion, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The charge was filed in a document known as an “amended information,” the Sentinel said. It carries a potentially longer sentence.
The new charges were filed as lawyers for band member were meeting with prosecutors and Circuit Judge Marc Lubet, who is presiding over the hazing case, the paper said. The judge imposed probationary, community-service sentences on two other former members of the Marching 100, Brian Jones and Ryan Dean, who pleaded no contest last year.
Champion, 26, died last November following a hazing ritual that took place on a charter bus outside of the Rosen Plaza hotel in Orlando after where the band stayed during the Florida Classic weekend. Reports say he was beaten by fellow members of the famed Marching 100 band aboard a bus.
Manslaughter, a second-degree felony in Florida, is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
