<p>Authorities say five Columbia University students are charged with selling drugs at campus housing - and one of their suppliers is accused of a kidnapping plot. </p>
<p>Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Tuesday that the students and three off-campus suppliers have been arrested and indicted.</p>
<p>Authorities say one supplier is charged with plotting to kidnap a pair of rival cocaine traffickers.</p>
<p>I view it as the same type of insanity that causes doctors or pharmacists to engage in medicare fraud, or lawyers to dip into escrow accounts. Magical thinking that causes them to lose everything that they’ve worked so hard to achieve.</p>
<p>Well, if they toddled on down a few hundred blocks to Goldman Sachs, they could be rewarded far more handsomely for acts that inflicted far larger damage on far more people–and skip away without a glove being laid on them. Perhaps they thought they were just practicing for the big leagues.</p>
<p>There are some very good people at Goldman, certainly some of the smartest people. Many of them are working hard to put their kids through school, just like us.</p>
<p>“There are some very good people at Goldman, certainly some of the smartest people. Many of them are working hard to put their kids through school, just like us.”</p>
<p>What does this have to do with the fact that they’re gambling fools?</p>
<p>And, no, Goldman people don’t work to “put their kids to school”. No one works in the IB division to do that.</p>
<p>It is so sad for the parents who have sacraficed for their kid’s educations…
and as young adults now the students have lost soo much more of their future than their realize…what a shame</p>
<p>I hope they get the same kind of sentencing that a mid-level dealers on the street would get. These kids were smart enough to know better, and were not doing it for survival. I will be very sad to hear about deals that involve suspended sentences and no jail time. While I have a great deal of sympathy for drug addicts, I can’t muster an ounce of compassion for these thoughtless people. I do pity the parents right now, though.</p>
<p>There were some students down at Georgetown that got busted for this type of idiocy, too. Oh well, there will be some openings for on-campus housing next semester and potentially some spots for transfer students next year.</p>
<p>I feel bad for the kids that didn’t get off the waitlist in their respective years.</p>
<p>The Goldman Sachs stuff aside, of course, I think what he or she is trying to say is that white-collar crime tends to be punished much less severely than other types of non-violent crime, even when the harm to the victims and the society is equal and even sometimes greater. That’s true enough, I guess. I used to work at a state Attorney General’s office and we were encouraged to offer better plea bargains to embezzlers than we would to, say, a mid-level street dealer. I can understand the logic behind that but it does create the impression that it’s somewhat more acceptable to steal from people and businesses as long as you’re wearing a suit and tie while you’re doing it.</p>
<p>That being said, this seems like an irrelevant digression. It’s not like drug dealing in college is some kind of predictor of becoming a white collar criminal in 10-20 years.</p>
<p>As a “child of the sixties” I don’t like to see this. The other stuff may be different, but IMO pot should be legalized (and taxed). And rigorous enforcement on a college campus is just moronic.</p>
<p>However, given that it hasn’t been legalized, anyone transgressing is taking a risk that I certainly would not take.</p>
<p>There are several articles. Some of the comments are…well…interesting. </p>
<p>While I don’t have much sympathy for Harrison David, this incident is a reminder to talk to your kids about how to deal with cops. One kid–the poor one, a Gates Millenium Scholar–apparently fought the cops resisting arrest. So, now he’s likely to have additional charges filed against him. Two of the kids apparently told the cops they had to sell to raise $. Harrison David, the only one charged with selling cocaine, and the one who was the focus of the investigation, blamed his father’s refusal to pay for school. </p>
<p>People panic. It’s natural. But tell your kids NOT to fight the cops physically and NOT to say anything that would consitute an admission of guilt. </p>
<p>This should get some frats closed down. There’s no way that amount of dealing could have been going on without at least some of the brothers knowing about it.</p>
<p>I imagine it has been very busy at all the national headquarters of these fraternities. Even if Columbia doesn’t shut down these houses, the national orgs will be coming down hard with punishments. But with non-Greek students involved as well, it is hard to blame it just on the fraternities. I am sure a few brothers knew about it, just like suitemates and neighbors in the dorms must have known as well.</p>