Five report sexual assaults at University of California Berkeley fraternity

[October 18, 2014]  (Reuters) - Five people have reported that they were given a date-rape drug and sexually assaulted at an off-campus fraternity at the University of California, Berkeley, school police said on Friday.

The five individuals told campus security that they were given "roofies" and assaulted at the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity last weekend, said Lieutenant Eric Tejada of the University of California, Berkeley, Police Department.

Tejada said he could release no further details of the allegations and that the investigation had been turned over to the Berkeley Police Department.

A spokesman for that agency could not be reached for comment on Friday afternoon. Authorities did not say if the victims were male or female.

"We were shocked and saddened to hear of this report and campus administrators are looking into the matter," Janet Gilmore, university spokeswoman, said in a written statement.

Gilmore said the university has notified the fraternity’s national headquarters of the incident and that administrators were grateful that individuals are coming forward and making the reports.

She said the fraternity is an unrecognized chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon at the university.

"UC Berkeley takes sexual assault very seriously and students who are found responsible for sexual assault by our student conduct office face sanctions up to and including removal from the university," Gilmore said.

The university police department said that in a second, apparently unrelated incident, a member of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity reported that he had been sexually assaulted by another member of the fraternity.

The alleged victim in that attack told campus authorities that he believed there could be other victims.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Eric Beech)

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