Eight members of the Chi Phi fraternity and five other individuals were arrested and charged with underage possession during the fraternity’s formal on Tybee Island two weeks ago.

Chi Phi is serving a two-year probation with the University after seven Chi Phi pledges

were caught showing “Black Tail,” a magazine featuring black women, to people at Tate Plaza and photographing their reactions on Sept. 6, 2006.

Three of the members arrested on Tybee, John Matthew Champagne, Andrew Craft Avram and Drewry Allen Littlewood, participated in the incident at Tate and are on University probation.

The fraternity stayed at the Dunes Inn on Tybee Island, about six hours from the University, on April 14 and April 15.

Five other fraternity members were arrested the night of the formal: Garrett Lowe Owens, Linton Andrew Bishop, Russell Anderson Smith, Thomas Allen Forrester and Walter Eugene Shamp, whose parents both work for the University.

It all began when a Tybee Island Police officer saw several people standing around the Dunes Inn’s pool with drinks in their hands at 2:10 a.m. on April 15, according to the Tybee Island Police report.

The officer determined all four individuals were underage and under the influence of alcohol, police said.

Owens, Shamp, University student Ashley Nichole Knotts and Gainesville State College student Abigail Graham Dutson were arrested and charged with underage possession of alcohol.

The officer then saw a male and a female, who appeared to be intoxicated, standing in front of the Dunes Inn at 2:32 a.m., according to the police report. Both individuals were under 21 and agreed to take a preliminary breath test, according to the police report.

John Benbry Haywood and University student Morgan Alexendria Kelly were arrested and charged with underage possession of alcohol. During their arrest, Forrester approached the officer and also was arrested and charged with underage possession of alcohol, police said.

The officer went to one of the arrested individual’s hotel rooms at 3:02 a.m. to retrieve a driver’s license and saw two people watching him from the window, police said. After he knocked on the door, he immediately heard “what sounded like metal cans moving around all over the place inside the room,” according to the police report.

The door was opened after a slight delay and the officer noticed six males in the room who appeared to be under the influence of alcohol, according to the police report.

The males told the officer they were all 19 years old, and they each registered positive for alcohol on a breath test, police said.

Champagne, Bishop, Smith, Avram, Littlewood and Gainesville State College student Seth McKenzie Thomason, who also was involved in the Tate porn incident, were arrested and charged with underage possession.

Littlewood, who was involved in the Tate incident, also was arrested Oct. 11, 2006. He was charged with underage possession after a confrontation with an Athens-Clarke County police officer.

The individuals were kept in a holding cell until they sobered up, said Tybee Island Police Maj. Chris Case. Everyone posted a $650 bond and was released. No one was transported to Chatham County Jail.

Although the fraternity is on probation, Judicial Programs has taken no disciplinary action against the fraternity since the arrests.

Pat Daughterty, assistant vice president for student affairs, said she was unaware of Chi Phi’s arrests on Tybee Island and did not know how it would affect the fraternity’s probation.

If a University-recognized student organization gets into trouble, Judicial Programs can get the police reports and look into

the incidents, Daugherty said. Students will be reprimanded if it is determined their actions violated the University’s student code of conduct, she said.

Case said there are several hotels in Tybee that said they won’t have any of these groups back.

“We’re just trying to get the word out that we will arrest underage drinkers,” Case said. “If we see a large crowd on the beach, and we suspect underage drinking, we will take action.”

Efforts to reach Charlie White, president of Chi Phi, were unsuccessful.