STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said 14 people face charges in an alleged cocaine-trafficking operation involving primarily Penn State college students and two fraternities.<\/p>\n
13 defendants were Penn State University students at or around the time of the alleged conduct, in 2023 and 2024, according to a news release from the AG\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
The 14th defendant, the father of a student, is charged with tampering with evidence and hindering the investigation, Sunday said.<\/p>\n
According to the investigation and a grand jury presentment, two members of the organization \u2014 Agostino Abbatiello and Thomas Robinson \u2014 were the main suppliers for the group, making regular trips to Philadelphia and New York for large quantities of cocaine, the AG\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
According to the AG\u2019s office, the cocaine was then cut and packaged \u2014 primarily at the Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi fraternity houses \u2014 and distributed mainly to Penn State University students.<\/p>\n
Abbatiello, Robinson, and two others \u2014 Mohammed Hurabi and Lars Zeepvat \u2014 are charged with felony corrupt organizations, conspiracy, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity, and related offenses, according to the news release.<\/p>\n
A fifth person, Robert Zanolla, is charged with felony conspiracy and criminal use of a communication facility, and related misdemeanors, the AG\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
Sunday said the eight other student-aged defendants charged are facing misdemeanor counts of possession and paraphernalia.<\/p>\n
According to the AG\u2019s office, law enforcement used a variety of tactics to track the people involved, how the cocaine was obtained, packaged and sold.<\/p>\n
The AG\u2019s office said most of the payments were made in cash or via payment apps.<\/p>\n
Also charged, with misdemeanors, are: Liam Smith, Michael Brogno, Kaden Howe, Connor Hurleigh, Seth Beardsley, Kyle Ridpath, Daniel Price, and Charles Wiseman, the AG\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
Sunday said Paul Robinson is charged with felony tampering, hindering apprehension for taking steps to conceal evidence, including a safe containing drugs and cash, and obstructing the investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said 14 people face charges in an alleged cocaine-trafficking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[70157,112591,95653,13434,28,30,29,112590],"class_list":["post-267009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-cocaine-trafficking","tag-drug-ring","tag-fraternity","tag-penn-state-university","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-student-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}