Does anybody know what the typical sentencing is for a (I assume) first time offender charged with manufacturing a controlled illegal substance in DC? I’m just curious. Someone threw out a maximum of 20 years in prison in another related thread, and that seems like a little much. What are the odds these kids are actually going to get jail time?

@ not a law scholar

The 20 year maximum is established by the DEA’s federal trafficking penalties. See: http://www.justice.gov/dea/agency/penalties.htm

whats going to happen to them?

The Statute that applies from the Controlled Substances Act:

“STATUTE-
(a) Unlawful acts
Except as authorized by this subchapter, it shall be unlawful for
any person knowingly or intentionally –
(1) to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, or possess with
intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, a controlled
substance;

such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment which may
not be less than 10 years or more than life and if death or serious
bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be not
less than 20 years or more than life, a fine not to exceed the
greater of that authorized in accordance with the provisions of
title 18 or $4,000,000 if the defendant is an individual or
$10,000,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both.”

[...] two Georgetown freshmen arrested this morning in Harbin Hall for possession of drug paraphernalia manufacturing a controlled substance. The third suspect is John [...]

I would be shocked if they got 10 years. They’ll plea down, which is completely fair.

[...] Category C violations “likely” result in disciplinary suspension or expulsion.(Georgetown Blog) [...]

“They’ll plea down which is completely fair.” If they were minorities on a street corner after midnight selling a five dollar rock they’d get twenty years. The fact that they’re over privileged college students with connections means they’ll probably walk on some technicality. To quote John Cougar Mellencamp: “Ain’t that America.”

@Beltway Greg:

Two things. 1) Let’s not make this a discussion on race and drug enforcement. 2) Why assume these are “over privileged” college students. Just because someone is a GU student does not imply he or she is “over privileged.” I worked my ass of to go to college and I have a massive amount of debt. I’m not “over privileged.” I earned it.

@ Beltway Greg

You are completely right about the terrible racial disparities in our justice system. Give the bastards 40 years.

Why is there no coverage of the students, who they are, where they are from, their backgrounds, any previous problems, how did they get in to GU, are they Catholic, etc.? Are you on a gag order from their attorneys not to publish any information? Have you interviewed any of their friends or people who knew them on the floor and what they were like? How could no one else have known about this? Get some information.

Does anybody know where these boys are now? Are they still in jail?

Why does it matter if they are Catholic?

In response to Marion, I knew one of them very well. A little socially awkward, but a really wonderful kid with a good heart, and very intelligent. One of the most genuinely nice guys I’ve ever met. Obviously made a REALLY bad choice. But seriously, these are smart boys who made a really dumb decision to do something ‘badass’ and possibly make some money in broke college times. They aren’t drug lords trying to support their brothel or anything like that.

Personally, I really hope they don’t get punished as severely as so many of the commenters here hope they do. I’m sure they are scared shitless right now, and they obviously will be punished and expelled, but 5+ years in prison would be absolutely ridiculous.

It doesn’t matter if they are Catholic or not. I just mentioned it because I believe GU is Jesuit? It would be slightly ironic. I am just really amazed that more facts have not come out yet so their parents must have hired attorneys that are keeping a lid on things right now. For some reason I think this story is really interesting, if I only could find out more.

Thank you Jenna. Very interesting. I figured they must be very immature and naive. Intelligent but SO stupid.

I dont know the kids and have no interest in protecting them… but I ask vox and other student publications not to make a spectacle of their lives. Rest assured they are plenty screwed.

Personally I am Nancy Grace status outraged, but it sucks to think how these kids closed sooooo many doors. Suffice it to say this cancels out the research assistantship or capital hill gig on the resume.

Shame on Admissions, they seriously screwed the pooch admitting the Class of 2014. First a girl gets in after/para being in two porn videos, now two pieces of trailer trash are making their own brew in a dorm. I suppose Cura Personalis is simply lipservice to a dead tradition.

The real shame here is that these kids who are presumably intelligent will now almost certainly do jail time for a victimless crime which then makes them unemployable. This incident and the lovely American justice system will make sure they never have a chance to contribute to society. I’m surprised no one has brought this up – don’t we have any libertarians around here?

Victimless? If we base crimes simply on victimless, then there will be a lot less people in jail that deserve to be there. For instance… attempted murder and/or plot to murder. Well hey, no one died, why not just let them off with a slap on the wrist? How about insider trading etc… You dont know if this was victimless. What if someone with a chronic illness accidentally ingested this substance and ended up in a coma?

People pay a lot of money to go to this school. Exposure to illegal substances like marijuana and coke is enough, but to add synthetic drugs… just too much (who knows how toxic it truly is… these kids are 18 or so… not people in late twenties that probably have been doing this for years). And I don’t care how smart so and so say they are… they are not smart if they decided to do this.

@ idea man
that seems like a very pessimistic point of view. you don’t know for sure that they will serve jail time. will their lives be more complicated from now on? yes. but that was their mistake. they will be expelled, but that is a small price to pay in regards to the rest of their lives. they can still go to a different college, get employed, and have a full life. i hope that the judge realizes that these kids are intelligent and promising youth who simply made a stupid mistake, and realize that they have their whole lives ahead of them.
i really hope they don’t get any jail time

there was a girl in a porno? wtf is going on

While this incident could be described as “victimless,” there was no guarantee that if circumstances worked out slightly differently that this could still be said. The students in question were described as having “six mason jars containing a clear substance, and a turkey baster.” Based on the odor that apparently filled the hallway and got them caught, these jars were unlikely to be filled with water. Using the internet, I looked up the ingredients involved in making DMT. One is lye, which is highly basic, can cause severe burns, and can be flammable while in solution. Another is naptha, which a highly violate and flammable liquid derived from petroleum. I don’t know for sure if they had these things, but these instructions specifically call for a turkey baster to be used so I’m inclined to believe that the kids either had these substances or were looking to obtain them. Having highly flammable chemicals in the hands of untrained individuals in a building where over 400 kids reside is the definition of irresponsibility and recklessness. A single mistake on these kids’ part could have resulted in a tragic fire or worse. A “stupid mistake” does not put this many people at risk. They deserve what they get.

Hey gtownstudent,
DMT is not a synthetic drug. They weren’t ‘manufacturing’ this, they were extracting it from natural plant sources. DMT has been used in religious rituals for nearly 5000 years without anyone dying, and the fact that it is schedule 1 is a joke.

To the writers of Vox (and Todd Olson): Just so you know, DEA stands for Drug Enforcement ADMINISTRATION (not Agency).

No biggie, but using the correct name wouldn’t hurt either…

@ Just sayin…

Oof. You are right. I’ve fixed the error.

yes, yes there was

@gc83

“Let’s not make this a conversation on race and drug enforcement.” It’s not a conversation my friend it’s reality and in some cases black legislators fought for the stricter sentences in the wake of the death of U of Md’s Len Bias back in the late 80s.
A little bit of rock vs. a few ounces of powder.

Please keep us updated on this case

@ Jessica

We’ll have an update tomorrow, as well as more posts throughout the week.

Chris or whoever is covering this story,
I don’t know if this blog should be investigative journalism, but with a case like this, someone should be at courthouse, read docs, find out if one of the kids has a Dad who is a Georgetown alum and plastic surgeon in CA, interview people and don’t worry about the gag order by expensive attorneys. You are students without full time jobs in media to risk . If you go in depth and publish things they don’t want published who cares, you are making a big story that CNN or Huffington Post might want to copy. How long were they up to this, was it for personal use (even if that is not so important), what is the connection to the U of Richmond kid, what do they study, who are their attorneys, are they out on bond, are they taking any meds themselves, what did they post on Facebook, etc.??

I agree, I think this is a good opportunity for student journalists to do some strong investigative work (or at least, following the case closely and reporting back for the larger student body)… of course, I know there are countless people on this thread who would then claim that, if this is done, Vox is being “nosy” or “exposing the students” to harsh media criticism. Oy.

Mitchell–while that is all well and good and completely factual. It doesn’t change the fact that the law views it as the manufacturing of a schedule I controlled substance.

I’m with @Recent Alum, being shocked to hear about the female student being in a porn video. Also, I would appreciate any info about the video that someone could post here. kthx

Hey Adam,

You really are a cocksucker, you know that? Your point on the girl in the Porno is completely and totally irrelevant considering she, along with any student on this close minded campus, has the right to do a porn whenever and however she wants. It’s legal…remember? Maybe you should get your facts straight before dismissing these kids as “trailer-trash” considering everyone now knows methamphetamines weren’t even involved. DMT is a severely less serious drug that is naturally occurring in the brain. Granted, due to their undeniable knowledge of the rules and social constraints it was a tremendously foolish thing to do. The way I see it, however, is that it’s a shame that intellectual, curious students like that are getting kicked off campus when I have to deal with intolerant fudgepackers like you for the next 4 years.

And you too, Steve. You have a problem with a girl being in a porno? Why’s that? You’re shocked? Don’t think she should go here? Who the fuck do you think YOU are?

Seriously, there is nothing illegal about an adult consenting to make a porn. Honestly, I’d have a lower opinion of her if she taped a fully clothed commercial for some mega corporation. Besides, I’m sure Steve has held nary a lustful thought towards so much as the expos’d ankles of a young woman.

DMT occurs naturally throughout your environment. You’re exposed to it all the time. It is practically impossible to OD on DMT by smoking it, because you would somehow have to ingest about 90 times the amount of DMT that would render you so high as to be unable to smoke any more if it (source: Merck Index). DMT is not chemically addictive. As long as you don’t have a weak heart (which would cause you to avoid something strenuous like riding a roller coaster), you’re not taking an SSRI, you don’t have significant psychological issues, and you’re not sitting on the edge of a cliff, you would normally be fine. Your body releases DMT INTO YOUR BRAIN when you sleep. That’s right people, science strongly suggests that dreaming is pretty much a mild form of tripping on a Schedule I controlled narcotic.

The real lunatics are the people who perpetuate a War on (some) Drugs, while deadly substances like tobacco and alcohol are readily available across the street at Wisey’s. You only need about 25 or 30 “doses” of alcohol to risk death, and they’re all stocked and chilled right there for your drinking pleasure. Legally obtained prescription drugs kill over one hundred thousand Americans every year. Heck, you could buy a big ol’ bottle of Drain-O for $5.99 at CVS and knock yourself out if you wanted. Even Todd Olsen, PhD, was emphatic that no students outside of that dorm room were ever at any risk. There’s some perspective for you.

@Joe: lay off the homophobic comments. they’re dragging down your otherwise legitimate argument.

Did Joe just use the word “fudgepackers” in an argument decrying the intolerance of others? Brilliant. Thanks, Joe.

Anytime, Timmy.

God you are an ass. You spend way more time picking out individual words or grammatical errors in other people’s comments than actually reading them and considering that they may, in fact, have a valid and opposing argument to your own.

@Joe, I’m not sure if I have a problem with this coed being in a pornographic movie. I would probably have to see the coed performing the pornographic acts before I decided how shocked or outraged to be.

@@Tim, I tend to agree with you about Tim’s general disposition towards the comment board, but as long as he’s keeping it clean, let the man speak. I gotta tell ya, as a gay man, as soon as I heard some of the words in Joe’s post, I stopped listening to the rest of his otherwise decent argument. Call me overly sensitive, but I’m sick of hearing demeaning crap like that all the time.

If Joe was a real man, he’d give us his full name and address. Little boys like to make anonymous homophobic comments.

Way to call someone a “cocksucker” as an insult. Really mature. Also, very accepting of you of others’ choice of engaging in legal sexual acts. JERK.

Here you go!
http://collegeacb.com/sb/Georgetown/thread/354408

For info on Kelly Baltazar.. err, I mean, porn girl Myli:

http://www.spiritofthehilltop.com/

Oh and Joe… piss of to Swarthmore if you dislike it here. You’d do the rest of us a favor.

Somebody who isn’t me made a brilliant comment elsewhere:

“You know what’s really criminal about these stories? The nutjobs that come out of the woodwork spouting the same old BS about drugs that they either learned from DARE or some dopey crime drama and their lack of a decent command of the written English language. But of course to those people, if you demonstrate any amount of knowledge about evilbad drugs, you’re some loser that’s ready to rape their family and steal their TV set. It’s just that it’s so hard for them to communicate their fears to you, which makes them angrier which causes them to lash out more. It’s really funny to watch sometimes. Grab a bag of popcorn if/when legalization happens. The Internets will be one entertaining place when it comes to arguments in regards to drugs.”

These kids’ actions were about as dangerous as having a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a can of Draino…so apparently anybody out there who has those things in their house should consider themselves a danger to all those around them and a menace to society and turn themselves in right now.

Hang on second Joe, these people are rightfully upset that students who don’t have the common sense to avoid doing some of this stuff managed to make it past admissions. I personally think admissions definitely did screw up on the class of 2014. I happen to know for a fact that these incidents are not the only serious infractions to have been committed by this class, they’re just the 2 most prominent ones. And I understand your view that pornography is certainly legal, but that doesn’t make it a good decision. A lot of things are legal that probably shouldn’t be, and a lot of things are illegal that probably shouldn’t be. Are you going to make moral judgements based on this countries legal system, especially when more and more people on death row are exonerated every year because of DNA evidence? Just because something is legal doesn’t make it morally defensable.

[...] Caiola brags about the high moments of our history-making, drug-cooking, and now basketball-brawling University. Hoya [...]

[...] after a fire broke out. The fire was caused by students cooking (Editor’s note: Cooking food) in the third floor common [...]