'Your Kids Are the Target': Retired NYPD Inspector Cites a Fentanyl Death, a Penn State Cocaine Case and Ole Miss Deaths
Fox News contributor Paul Mauro says parents need to warn students about drugs after three campus cases. Each case rests on charges, not verdicts, and the Ole Miss deaths were reported as suspected overdoses.
A retired New York police inspector says families should talk to their college-bound children about drugs now, Fox News reports.
The warning. Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD inspector and Fox News contributor, said: "There is a panoply of drugs out there that will destroy your kids." He added, "If you're sending a kid off to college these days, you better sit that child down and give that child a hard primer on what could possibly happen," and, "Our enemies know what they're doing, and your kids are the target."
New York. A newly unsealed federal indictment charges Moises Freire, 19, and Brian Peralta, 18, both of Queens, after a woman died and another was badly hurt at a Fashion Institute of Technology dorm in March. The New York Post identified the dead woman as Annabel Richter, 20, a student from Brazil. Prosecutors say the men told her the drug was cocaine and it was fentanyl. Both pleaded not guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance resulting in death. Freire also faces a charge of distributing a controlled substance with intent to commit rape, and the indictment says he waited about 45 minutes to call campus security. FIT's president thanked the Justice Department and the NYPD for their work.
Mississippi. Two University of Mississippi students, Aidan Hamilton, 18, and Robert Strang, 20, were found dead Sept. 21 of suspected overdoses. Investigators found packaged kratom products at both scenes, and federal charges followed against a vape shop clerk and his son for selling banned compounds in retail packaging.
Pennsylvania. Attorney General Dave Sunday charged 14 men, current and former students among them, in an alleged cocaine ring that operated from off-campus fraternity houses including Sigma Chi and Delta Upsilon. Former student Agostino Abbatiello, 24, is named as the ringleader, nicknamed "Pablo Pledgescabar." A complaint says pledges were made to cut and bag cocaine, which came from larger networks in Philadelphia and New York. Penn State said the allegations so near campus are "very concerning."
The supply. Mauro said the drugs come from Chinese labs that "change the formula all the time" to stay ahead of drug laws, then move through Mexican and South American cartels.
Note for readers: the defendants are accused and none is convicted. Mauro also suggested New York officials would prefer such stories "occur someplace far from New York" before the election. That is his opinion, offered without evidence in the piece.