‘Some Very Dumb Stuff’: Fox News Legal Analyst Blasts Penn State Frat Boys for Filming Alleged Cocaine Slinging Operation
They weren’t exactly a bunch of young Al Pacinos in Scarface, according to Paul Mauro.
The Fox News legal analyst slammed the alleged masterminds of the Penn State cocaine trafficking ring during a Tuesday appearance on America Reports, with Mauro saying the suspected drug peddlers are in a “world of trouble.” One big problem Mauro noted for the frat boys at the heart of it: their “brazen” operation made it easy for state cops to bust them.
“This thing could have been penetrated a whole host of ways… a tip-off, somebody who got nervous in the frat house [potentially]. Reportedly, one of the perps here that’s is charged at the felony level — at the RICO level, in fact — had video on his phone of pledges packaging the cocaine,” Mauro said. “So these guys were doing some very dumb stuff.”
“Lord,” host Sandra Smith sighed as he described the bozo nature of the alleged operation.
They discussed the case a day after Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced 14 people were charged in connection to the alleged cocaine-trafficking scheme; 13 of the men charged were students or ex-students at Penn State, while the 14th guy is the father of one of the defendants.
“This was a coordinated and highly-profitable drug-trafficking crew revolving around two senior members of the fraternities, other fraternity brothers, and pledges,” Sunday said. “In fact, according to the evidence uncovered, cutting and packaging cocaine was, for some pledges, an indoctrination into the fraternities.”
Smith asked Mauro why the probe ended up taking a year. Mauro — who was the commanding officer of the NYPD’s legal bureau before moving to TV — said it was likely because the investigators wanted to make sure the case was airtight, not because the ring was tough to crack.
“The penetration of this couldn’t have been very hard,” Mauro said. “At some point, somebody gets nervous about what they’re seeing in and around them and there’s a tip-off.”
He continued, “Then all the cops have to do is get some young-looking kids, you send ’em in, you wire them up, the do a buy, you start working out who’s doing what, you get up on the phones, maybe you pull some video — after a while, you can see the contours of the organization, and then all you gotta do is flip a couple of guys.”
Mauro added the defendants are in a tough spot, because they are all old enough to be tried as adults. He added four of them should really be sweating bullets because they are facing state-level RICO charges.
“That’s like a mafia charge,” Mauro explained.
Watch above.
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