Nine people – including seven former members of an expelled fraternity — have been indicted after an investigation into the alleged hazing death of an Ohio University freshman last year, prosecutors said.

The charges announced Tuesday in the November 2018 death of Collin Wiant, 18, range from involuntary manslaughter to reckless homicide to hazing, Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said.

Wiant’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Sigma Pi fraternity in February, alleging its members forced excessive amounts of drugs and alcohol in his system before he fell unconscious.

The teen died after being plied by several of his frat brothers with canisters of nitrous oxide – or “whippets” – and died of asphyxiation due to inhalation of the gas, according to a toxicology report cited in the family’s lawsuit.

The charges are a vital part of the “part of the process of making change” on college campuses regarding alleged hazing, Wiant’s mother told the Columbus Dispatch.

“We’re out to save lives and to do that we need to make sure that we bring justice,” Kathleen Wiant told the newspaper. “But especially today, we understand that there are no winners, and that is heavy on our hearts.”

Two of the people indicted, former Ohio students Joshua Androsac, 20, and Corbin Gustafson, 22, were with Wiant when he died. Androsac has been charged with involuntary manslaughter permitting drug abuse, hazing and trafficking in harmful intoxicants, while Gustafson is facing a count of reckless homicide, the newspaper reports.

After Wiant collapsed on the floor of an unofficial, off-campus fraternity house, Gustafson first called the fraternity’s president before waiting several minutes to call 911, phone records obtained by the newspaper show.

In addition to giving Wiant whippets, his frat brothers also deprived the freshman of sleep, beat him with a belt, pelted him with eggs and forced him to drink a gallon of alcohol in an hour, the lawsuit alleged.

The fraternity — which was later expelled for violations including hazing, as well as drug and alcohol abuse — denied the allegations, claiming Wiant wasn’t actually a pledge at the time of his death.

Blackburn said the charges should send a clear message that hazing will not be tolerated at the 29,000-student university.

“The Wiant family has forever lost a son,” Blackburn said. “And while there is nothing that can be done to change that, there is some solace in maybe that this won’t be done to another family.”

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