## Facts

- Zeta Chi Fraternity, a New Hampshire corporation affiliated with the University of New Hampshire, held a “rush” event at its fraternity house on February 21, 1994.
- The fraternity hired two female strippers to perform and encouraged guests to give them money, stating that more money would lead to more explicit conduct.
- Members facilitated payments by making change and by organizing the performance space, including bringing out a mattress.
- Witnesses described conduct including simulated sexual acts and episodes where guests who paid money were led to the mattress and engaged in oral sex with a dancer.
- A nineteen-year-old guest, Andrew Strachan, testified he purchased three to five beers from a vending machine located in an apartment within the fraternity house after learning beer was available there.
- The State presented evidence that the fraternity, through its officers and collective decision-making, controlled the apartment and the beer-dispensing machine; meeting minutes were introduced at trial concerning organizational control.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove the fraternity knowingly allowed prostitution at the event under RSA 645:2, I(e).
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove the fraternity sold alcohol to a person under twenty-one under RSA 179:5, based on its control over the premises and beer vending arrangement.
3. Whether the trial court erred by admitting fraternity meeting minutes to establish knowledge/control and for impeachment.
4. Whether a probation condition authorizing unannounced searches by police was unconstitutional.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the prostitution conviction, holding the evidence permitted a finding that the fraternity knowingly allowed prostitution during the rush event.
- The court affirmed the underage alcohol-sale conviction, holding the evidence permitted a finding that the fraternity exercised sufficient control over the apartment and vending machine such that the sale was attributable to the organization.
- The court declined to review the evidentiary challenge to the meeting minutes because the asserted error was not preserved by a specific, timely objection.
- The court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing, holding unconstitutional the probation condition authorizing unannounced searches by police.

## Legal Principles

- A corporation may be held criminally liable for offenses committed through agents acting within the scope of their authority where the organization’s actions and knowledge can be attributed through its members’ conduct.
- For prostitution-related liability based on “knowingly allowing” prohibited acts, evidence that organizational agents arranged, facilitated, and permitted sex-for-money conduct on controlled premises can satisfy the State’s burden.
- For illegal alcohol sales attributed to an organization, the State may prove the “sale” through evidence of organizational authorization or control over the premises and instrumentalities used to provide alcohol, without identifying a single individual who physically transferred the alcohol.
- To preserve an evidentiary claim for appeal, a party must make a specific, timely objection stating the grounds so the trial court can rule.
- Although probation entails reduced privacy expectations, probation conditions cannot broadly authorize suspicionless, unbounded searches by general law enforcement officers beyond supervision-related functions.

## Conclusion

The court sustained Zeta Chi’s convictions for prostitution and selling alcohol to a minor based on evidence of member-facilitated sex-for-money activity and organizational control over beer access, but it vacated the sentence because a probation condition permitting unannounced police searches exceeded constitutional limits.


State v. Zeta Chi Fraternity, 696 A.2d 530 (N.H. 1997)