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Columbia Students' Coke Ring Sniffed Out By Cops

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Oh, no, Alma Mater!

Columbia University crisis! Chaos ensued uptown this morning as five students were arrested as part of the NYPD's "Operation Ivy League," a case that has been building through undercover buys since the summer. According to the Post, the students sold cops drugs "totaling $11,000 including cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, Adderall, and LSD. In some cases, LSD was applied to Altoids mints and other candy."

The Columbia Spectator has the official statement from the Special Narcotics Prosecutors Office, which reveals the names of unlucky student-dealers: Chris Coles, Harrison David, Adam Klein, Joseph Stephan Perez (all 20), and Michael Wymbs, 22.

Perez, known as Stephan around campus, is a club promoter-entrepreneur with the dual identity of a BMOC and prestigious Gates Millennium Scholar (known equally for his raps, modeling, and super friendly yet garish behavior), Adam Klein used to be a member (albeit one with Legolas-esque hair) of the fencing team—the only good team left in Columbia Athletics—while Mike Wymbs sat on the engineering school's student council as Vice President. As for the others, David was a salutatorian of a ritzy prep school and Coles was just trying to get by, telling police "he was selling drugs to pay for school."

Some of the sales were made out of fraternities-in-brownstones Psi Upsilon, Pi Kappa Alpha, and Alpha Epsilon Pi, senior party-haven dorm East Campus, and the Intercultural House since the summer, which other students didn't necessarily love. According to DNAInfo at PsiU Tuesday morning a brother hand-wrote in an agenda item that read: "'Don't sell drugs out of the frathouse...Adam [Klein] should have followed this rule."

In an email just sent around to students living in frats, sororities, and other brownstones around campus, Columbia tried to save whatever is left of its drugged-up image: "Columbia University has not given media outlets permission to enter your brownstones. Reporters are only able to enter brownstones with your permission and as your visitor." Bwog also reports that "as a possible consequence of this, a tipster has informed us that sororities have been instructed to take down Theta + Pike posters around campus and to remove Facebook photos from inside fraternity houses."

The drug ring also reached outside of the school's Morningside Heights confines: The Daily News reports that the sting operation nabbed the drug traffickers who were supplying the students, like East Village dealer Miron Sarzynski, 23, who was planning to go Tony Montana on some drug-dealing rivals using guns, LSD torture, and at-gunpoint ransom tactics. Sarzynski allegedly said, "I would have done something nasty, like put a few drops of acid in his mouth and then leave him there." Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, "The fact that a supplier to the Columbia students was willing to kill his rivals should demolish any argument that drugs on campus is a victimless crime." The arrested students will be arraigned Tuesday afternoon.

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Comments [rss]

  • OSN!

    You know what's kinda amusing? At least a few of these 'kids' would have and may still become respectable members and leaders of their community, hold probably conservative viewpoints and be card carrying Republicans. They will even talk about the evils of the big city....crime....drugs.....

    The more things change, the more they remain the same.

  • This will truly give Greek Life around the city a bad reputation.

  • OSN!

    You mean in addition to their reputation for being pervs and all around aholes?

  • mrguy

    Mothers, rejoice! Thanks to the hard work of the NYPD, Columbia University is now 100% free of drugs. You may send letters of thanks directly to the police commissioner's office.

  • It is called Columbia University. Huh, huh? Eh, that's all I've got...

  • gothamfaster

    When this happens to random ivy-league frat boys I don't know, it invokes the standard schadenfreude of entitled douchebags getting their comeuppance. Unfortunately, this time, I'm familiar with one of the arrested, and it's genuinely upsetting. The impact of his mistakes on the trajector of his life is likely to be significant, and this is happening right in the midst of final exams and final projects. I know this guy as being a genuinely friendly poet of considerable promise. He graduated from public school, and he is far from the stereotype of the entitled legacy kid with influential parents. I can't help but be saddened.

  • nice job

    whoa whoa whoa....he graduated from PUBLIC SCHOOL?!?!?

  • PTG in nyc

    Yea, poets need drugs, as do most creative people, whether or not they're entitled. Try pitying the rich kids next time too!

  • Dead Himmler

    What about all the people who never had all the opportunities he had?

  • gothamfaster

    He fucked up. I'm sad that he fucked up. Why is that so confusing of a concept?

  • Kojak

    "LSD torture"

    You can torture someone with LSD? Who knew that tripping balls would be a bad thing.

  • "Perez, known as Stephan around campus"?
    Wow, People knew him by his 1st name?

  • Middle name ;)

  • The other candy was Sweet Tarts! How enterprising!

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