{"id":277850,"date":"2026-09-03T03:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T03:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/277850\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T03:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T03:44:10","slug":"alleged-leader-of-penn-state-fraternity-cocaine-ring-posts-bail-hours-after-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/277850\/","title":{"rendered":"Alleged leader of Penn State fraternity cocaine ring posts bail hours after hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

CENTRE COUNTY, Pa (WJAC) \u2014 Six members of the two Penn State fraternities accused of operating a large-scale cocaine trafficking ring are made their first appearance in Centre County court on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Among those was the alleged ringleader<\/a>, 24-year-old Agostino Abbatiello, whose attorneys requested that he be granted bail in the case.<\/a><\/p>\n

More than two weeks ago, investigators charged 14 individuals<\/a>, most of whom were involved with the Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi fraternities, alleging that they were selling cocaine to fellow Penn State students.<\/p>\n

Authorities also allege that the operation “forced” pledges to package the cocaine for distribution.<\/p>\n

During Wednesday’s bail hearing for Abbatiello, several co-defendants waived their preliminary hearings and instead took the stand to reportedly testify against him.<\/p>\n

Those individuals included the alleged ‘second in command’ Thomas Michael Robinson, 22-year-old Mohammed Huraibi and 24-year-old Lars Zeepvat, both New Jersey natives.<\/p>\n

According to our crew inside the courtroom, a State College Police detective also took the stand to discuss the alleged cocaine packaging involving the fraternities’ pledges.<\/p>\n

Court documents show that Mechanicsburg native Seth Beardsley and New York native Robert Zanolla are also expected to appear, as well as Robinson’s father — Paul Robinson. <\/p>\n

Following the testimony, President Judge Jonathan Grine ruled that all of Abbatiello’s charges will be bound over for trial and his bail was set at $250,000. <\/p>\n

According to the Attorney General, the six co-defendants who appeared in court also had their charges bound over for trial. <\/p>\n

Authorities say Abbatiello later posted bail Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CENTRE COUNTY, Pa (WJAC) \u2014 Six members of the two Penn State fraternities accused of operating a large-scale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-277850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}