HIGHER LEARNING! FIVE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ARRESTED FOR SELLING WEED, COKE, LSD & E PILLS!

Five Columbia University students - including a former student government leader - were busted Tuesday for dealing drugs out of frat houses and dorms on the Ivy League campus, officials said.
The undergrads sold nearly $11,000 in cocaine, LSD, marijuana, ecstasy and other drugs to undercover cops since July, police charged.

"This is no way to work your way through college," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

A five-month sting dubbed "Operation Ivy League" culminated in raids on Columbia's Morningside Heights campus during which all five students were collared.

One student, Michael Wymbs, 22, a senior from Beach Haven, N.J., is a former vice president of the student council of the engineering school, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

Another, Harrison David, 20, a sophomore from Laguna Beach, Calif., was also an engineering student - and salutatorian of his high school class, Browne said.

Adam Klein, 20, who hails from Charleston, S.C., is a neuroscience major and a member of the fencing team, according to the school website.

Also arrested were Chris Coles, 20, and Jose Stephan Perez, 20.

All five tried to cover their faces as they were led out of the NYPD's 25th Precinct stationhouse early Tuesday afternoon. They are expected to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan Criminal Court.

When Coles was pinched, he told cops he was selling weed to pay for school, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Perez goes by the name Stephan Vincenzo and runs an entertainment company out of his frat-house pad, according to a university blog. He claims to have hosted a party at a downtown club for 1,400 people during orientation last year.

David, Perez and Klein peddled drugs out of frat houses for Alpha Epsilon Pi, Pi Kappa Alpha and Psi Upsilon, respectively, according to Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan.

The bulk of the sales were made in common areas and bedrooms at the frat houses. Coles and Wymbs are accused of making sales at on-campus dorms.

The students each specialized in selling a certain drug, and they coordinated their efforts, referring potential deals to one another depending on the customer's desired fix, Brennan said.

They found creative ways to market their LSD, applying the liquid hallucinogen to Altoids mints and SweeTARTS candy.

Cops executed search warrants Tuesday morning and uncovered a bottle of LSD, 50 capsules of powdered ecstasy, more than a half-pound of pot and $2,000 in cash, Brennan said.

A spokesman for Columbia University did not immediately return a phone message and an email seeking comment.

The investigation, orchestrated by the NYPD's Manhattan North Narcotics Bureau, began when several anonymous complaints - some from students - were made to the NYPD's Crime Stoppers tipline.

The probe was so effective it ensnared three of the students' drug suppliers - including an East Village man who has been charged with plotting to whack a pair of rival drug thugs.

Miron Sarzynski, 23, who believed his competitors had swiped his cash, tried to hire an undercover cop to get even.

His plan was devious and cruel: He wanted to kidnap the rivals at gunpoint and torture them with LSD and threaten to kill them until friends forked over ransom money.

Sarzynski at one point boasted: "I would have done something nasty, like put a few drops of acid in his mouth and then leave him there," according to a criminal complaint.

"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," Kelly said.


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