Butler University and Morgan State University, respectively. In 1940, Alpha Phi Alpha, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and Kappa Alpha Psi hosted conventions in the Municipal Auditorium of Kansas City, Missouri, and held a historic joint BGLO session. Embezzlement and hazing controversies Embezzlement In 2020, Guy Bell, fraternity member and treasurer of the Baltimore City-Wide graduate chapter, was sentenced for stealing $56,678.93 from the chapter between 2013 and 2016 to help cover personal debts. The chapter was behind on rent payments and other important financial obligations. Bell was sentenced to six months of home detention, five years of probation, and must pay back $51,834 in restitution. In 2012, the 33rd General President of the fraternity, Reverend Herman '"Skip" Mason, admitted to misappropriating fraternity funds which resulted in his immediate removal by the board of the fraternity. He admitted using unsanctioned fraternity funds to cover personal expenses, including paying for his children's private school tuition. Mason sued the board of the fraternity for violating organization by-laws and harming his reputation. Mason's lawsuit was denied. In 2012, fraternity member Curtiss Stanford, was arrested and charged with three counts of embezzlement. He illegally wrote 10 checks totaling about $1,200 from the Appalachian State University chapter's bank account. Hazing In 1989, Joel Harris an Alpha Phi Alpha aspirant, age 18, a student at Morehouse College died following suspected hazing. The Cobb County medical examiners report "didn't declare the hazing to be a "direct cause" of Joel's death, but it stated that he was "under an intensive amount of anxiety and stress" that night. It was reported that Harris had been punched in the chest and slapped in the face multiple times as part of a so-called "thunder and lightning" ritual hours before his death. In 1992, Gregory R. Batipps, age 20, a student at the University of Virginia, died in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel. Hazing was investigated as a factor in his death as he was pledging Alpha Phi Alpha. In 1995, a pledge seeking to join the fraternity's founding chapter, the Alpha Chapter at Cornell University, developed a "life-threatening infection in his buttocks" after being paddled repeatedly. He sued the fraternity for $2 million and the fraternity was banned from campus for several years for violating the school's code of conduct. In 2003, a 21-year-old pledge at Southern Methodist University (SMU) went into a coma after being coerced to drink