Five Columbia University students were charged recently with selling LSD-laced candy and other drugs at three fraternity houses and other residences on the Ivy League campus, with two of the students allegedly claiming they needed the drug money to pay tuition.
“This is no way to work your way through college,” said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
After a five-month investigation dubbed “Operation Ivy League,” five individuals were arrested at dawn at the prestigious school in upper Manhattan, in what authorities have called one of the largest drug takedowns on a New York City college campus in recent memory.
Authorities said the investigation relied heavily on a youthful undercover officer who posed as a drug middleman for another college outside the city. Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan said the officer paid nearly $11,000 for 31 purchases of LSD, marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy and prescription stimulants.
Police said most of the arrested students’ customers were other students and friends buying smaller amounts for recreational use. The liquid LSD was sold in Altoids and SweeTarts.
Prosecutors said one of the students told arresting officers, “I just sell it to pay tuition.” The student, who was described as the initial target of the investigation, allegedly gave the same reasoning for their illegal entrepreneurial efforts, adding that his father “won’t pay tuition.”
The students – all 20-year-olds except for one, who’s 22 – were hauled into a Manhattan courtroom, shackled together and wearing Columbia and fraternity sweat shirts.
They pleaded not guilty to multiple drug dealing charges alleging they were supplied by violent traffickers.
School officials submitted a letter to students stressing the importance of the allegations, which they stated, go “against not only state and federal law, but also university policy and the principles we have set – and strive together to maintain – for our community.”
“Please rest assured we are taking this matter very seriously,” the letter stated.
