Philadelphia High School Drug Ring Busted

When I was growing up in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, no one ever seemed that sophisticated when it came to dealing drugs. But now there’s word out of the suburbs of Philadelphia of a drug ring at local public and private high schools, and college campuses.

“The texts between the friends appeared to be about the dearth of good marijuana back when they were Main Line prep school students – and how their fledgling drug business could take off. Timothy C. Brooks asked Neil K. Scott if he had ever envisioned such success. ‘Only dreamed of it,’ Scott allegedly wrote in reply. ‘There is a much bigger market than just a lb each at each of these schools.'”

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“Investigators said the pair demanded that their dealers move at least a pound of marijuana a week, and offered them incentives, such as discounts on drugs and the ability to buy on credit. ‘It was a business – an illegal business, but they were using very traditional business practices,’ Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said during a news conference announcing the arrests.”

And further:

“There, police said, they found marijuana and cocaine, $11,035 in cash, and weapons including a loaded AR-15 assault rifle and a loaded 9mm semiautomatic pistol. Also seized were cell phones used by Scott and Brooks.”

The problem is that the high end weapons – the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and the 9mm semiautomatic pistol – may open these defendants up to federal charges. The use of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense creates a mandatory minimum of five years in prison consecutive to any other sentence.