Jon Hamm’s involvement in 1990 fraternity hazing case comes to light

As “Mad Men” makes its final push toward the finish line, star Jon Hamm seems to be having a run of lousy days.

According to a 1991 lawsuit that surfaced this week and was obtained by the Associated Press, the Golden Globe winner was among a number of Sigma Nu fraternity members accused of taking part in a violent hazing incident in November 1990 at the University of Texas at Austin. Hamm was 19 at the time.

The lawsuit alleged violence against a Sigma Nu pledge that included leading him around with a hammer placed in a sensitive location, paddling him and setting his underpants on fire, according to the AP and a 1991 article from the San Antonio Light archives.

Three accused fraternity members were sentenced to jail for 30 days for hazing, Radar said. Sigma Nu was banned from UT Austin, according to a July 1991 story from the San Antonio Light. “Jonathan Hamm of St. Louis” was among four men listed in that story as being charged with “multiple counts of hazing.”

An arrest warrant was issued in August 1993 for the man who would later play Don Draper, the San Antonio Express News confirmed Thursday. The AP said Hamm was charged with hazing and received probation in a deal cut in 1995.

In the lawsuit, the pledge said Hamm participated “till the very end,” and university records show the actor left the school the same semester as the hazing, the AP reported.

“I dropped out of school, moved into the basement of my older half-sister Julie’s house, enrolled in a local college and sank into depression” after the 1991 death of his father, Hamm told the Mail on Sunday in 2012. He’d lost his mother to cancer when he was 10.

The hazing skeleton in Hamm’s closet has come to light after the 44-year-old revealed in March that he’d recently completed a 30-day rehab stint for alcohol addiction and after a tabloid reported this week that he and longtime partner Jennifer Westfeldt had split.

The latter rumor was shut down Thursday by a Hamm rep who told People the story was “not true.”

Reps for Hamm did not immediately respond to a Los Angeles Times request for comment.

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