According to a 1991 lawsuit, Jon Hamm, then known as college student, Jonathan Hamm, was convicted for a violent fraternity hazing that included setting a pledge on fire.
The suit surfaced this week and depicts the Mad Men star as a crazed Sigma Nu frat member who participated in a violent college hazing incident that took place in November 1990 at the University of Texas-Austin.
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The suit claimed that Hamm became “mad, I mean really mad,” when the new pledge, identified in the papers as Mark Allen Sanders, could not recite things he was supposed to memorize. Sanders alleged that Hamm hit him and shoved his face in the dirt. “He rears back and hits me left-handed, and he hit me right over my right kidney, I mean square over it,” he said in the lawsuit. “Good solid hit and that, that stood me right up.” The case was widely reported on at the time, though Hamm was not yet famous then. Identified as Jonathan Hamm of St. Louis in a 1991 story in the San Antonio Light, the paper reported that Sanders was beaten with a paddle and broom and led around the frat house “with the claw of a hammer beneath his genitals.” Sanders also claimed that Hamm set his pants on fire, the AP reports. h/t people
An arrest warrant was eventually issued for Hamm and several of his fellow frat members in 1993. He was charged with hazing and received probation.
University records show that Hamm left school the same semester as the alleged hazing occurred.
