INDIANA — A fraternity at Purdue University paid about$350 in restitution to a student newspaper after university officials found thegroup responsible for the theft of 4,000 newspapers.Pat Kuhnle,publisher and general manager of The Exponent, said the university foundthe fraternity, Theta Xi, responsible for the theft of several other newspapersas well, including USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.A student disciplinary board ordered the fraternity to pay the printingcosts of the student newspaper but not the other papers that were taken.Fraternity officials did not respond to requests for comment.Last October, newspaper staff members received several complaints thatnewspapers had been stolen from delivery sites across campus. Whileinvestigating the incident, bundled copies of The Exponent were found ina trash container behind the fraternity house over a span of twoweeks.”We collected the money, and there hasn’t been a problem since,”Kuhnle said. “I’m glad that somebody did something, because typically thosekinds of things are ignored.”Kuhnle said there is not a clear reason whythe fraternity took the newspapers. There have been no other instances ofnewspaper theft since the punishment was handed down lastDecember.Neither the Purdue University police department nor the WestLafeyette police department pursued criminal charges against anyone responsiblefor the theft.
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- 4,000 copies of college newspaper found in trash container near Ind. university News Flash, 11/10/2003