Roommate: Student Sold Pot To Pay Tuition

[The Straight Story]

Roommate: Student Sold Pot To Pay Tuition
UCF's Pegasus Pointe Apartments Raided During Thursday's Drug Bust


ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- When University of Central Florida student William Duke said the backstory to the suspected drug trafficking operation his roommate, Ross Goodman, helped run out of UCF's Pegasus Pointe apartments sounded like a movie script, he wasn't joking.

For months, dozens of dealers coordinated from Florida to California to distribute up to $750,000 worth of marijuana each week in Central Florida, with much of it going straight to UCF, according to investigators.

A gun battle involving an AK-47 assault rifle was even waged in Orange County's Waterford Trails neighborhood in October, related to Christopher Lafata's involvement in the multi-million dollar trafficking operation, investigators said. Police later arrested him near the Mall at Millenia, and seized 21 pounds of marijuana, a "machine gun style pistol containing .223 (caliber) armor-pierce rounds" and nearly $130,000 in cash.

But as the highest-level members of one of Central Florida's most sophisticated drug trafficking rings rented a plane to fly marijuana into Orlando, Duke said Goodman, 21, was likely sitting in class working toward his degree and a better future.

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/22769847/detail.html

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

1. Whatever happened to getting a school loan and work study?

My guess is that dealing drugs involves alot more effort than work study.
There's either more to this story or this kid's in an extremely unusual situation.

But man, this story is a trainwreck.
War on drugs, high tuition rates, gun-scare... this story's got it all. :shrug:

[onehandle]

2. Cue the gungeoneers to tell us what's important.

We need their 'expert opinion' on what exactly may be a 'machine gun style pistol.'

The world, and DU, waits breathlessly.

[ThomWV]

3. I'd be real interested in seeing that .223 armor-pierceing round.

And when is distributing "up to $750,000" a "multi-million dollar trafficking operation"?

You see, a .223 is a little teeney bullet and even though they are considered "high power" they simply don't have enough mass to penetrate any sort of armor no matter how you shape the projectile. So that's the first thing. Second thing is that when they say "up to" that puts an upper end limit on the discussion, and "multi-million" is way higher than three quarters of a million every time, so there's a bit of contradiction there as well.

These are just little things, but they just scream of sloppy reporting - and if they got that much wrong right on the face of the article, how much more of it is worth believing? Credibility is a tough thing.

[lunatica]

4. This story is probably bogus

Selling pot has been going on for fucking decades and the biggest result has been people getting happily stoned. Give me a break.