Prosecutors: Prep School Graduates Ran Drug Ring
Two prep school graduates sought to use their sports connections and business acumen to establish a monopoly on drug sales to high school students in the affluent Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia, authorities said Monday.
Neil Scott, 25, and Timothy Brooks, 18, recruited and supplied dealers with marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy and hash oil to sell to teens at five high schools in the tony bedroom communities, authorities said.
A four-month investigation revealed the pair also hired students at Haverford, Gettysburg and Lafayette colleges to peddle drugs at those Pennsylvania schools, authorities said.
Scott and Brooks are graduates of The Haverford School, a $35,000-a-year private institution where both played lacrosse. They tapped their sports and social networks to help further their enterprise, officials said.
"They were using very traditional business principles," Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said. "To take those skills and turn it into this kind of illegal enterprise is very distressing."
Scott, Brooks and several others arrested in the alleged ring were arraigned Monday on drug charges and related counts.
Scott's lawyer declined to comment, saying he hadn't yet reviewed the case.
Brooks' attorney, Greg Pagano, described his client as vulnerable and a bit depressed after leaving the University of Richmond last year due to an unnamed injury. Brooks lives at his family's home in Villanova.
"He, regrettably, lost his way," Pagano said. "His parents are devastated."
Scott, of Haverford, began selling pot after he moved back to the area last fall from San Diego, where he worked at a medical marijuana dispensary, officials said.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/prosecutors-prep-school-graduates-ran-drug-ring-n86206