A former Jericho High School student was arrested on April 21 for his alleged involvement in an 11-person drug ring that targeted high schools and colleges in Pennsylvania.
Garrett M. Johnson, 18, a Haverford College student from Jericho, was a “sub-dealer” who sold cocaine, marijuana, hash oil and ecstasy to students in Montgomery and its surrounding counties, according to Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.
Eight individuals were arrested, there is an arrest warrant out on another and petitions on two juveniles for being a part of the “Main Line Take Over Project,” as it is described through seized text messages by the organization’s two main drug suppliers.
The goal of the “project” was to take over the marijuana drug trade in local high schools and colleges, according to Ferman.
An investigation into drug trafficking led to the arrests of the organization’s main drug suppliers, Montgomery County residents 25-year-old Neil Scott and 18-year-old Timothy Brooks, both Haverford School graduates.
Other alleged sub-dealers arrested are 18-year-old Daniel Robert McGrath of Pennsylvania, 20-year-old John Cole Rosemann of Connecticut, 23-year-old Christian Stockton Euler of Pennsylvania, 18-year-old Reid Cohen of New Jersey, 22-year-old Willow Lynn Orr of Pennsylvania and 29-year-old Domenic Vincent Curcio of Pennsylvania.
Two unnamed 17-year-olds were also arrested.
“These arrests show that we are all affected by the cancerous and corruptive nature of illegal drugs,” said Philadelphia County District Attorney Seth Williams. “This is everyone’s problem. As the father of three daughters, two of whom are still in middle school, it is jarring that drugs from California not only made it to our area but that high school students were being used as dealers. The days of believing ‘it can’t happen here’ are long gone.”
In January of 2014, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Narcotics Enforcement Team and the Lower Merion Township Police Department initiated an investigation into a marijuana and cocaine trafficking organization, and identified Scott and Brooks as the organization’s principal suppliers. The investigation revealed that Scott was shipped pounds of marijuana from a California supplier.
Shipments went to Scott’s Haverford apartment, according to Williams, which was the base of his illegal drug operation. Scott also used his parent’s home in Paoli, and Brooks’ family home in Villanova to conduct their drug business. Scott and Brooks employed students from five Pennsylvania high schools and three colleges as sub-dealers to distribute the drugs, according to investigators.
“Parents across our community have chosen to send their children to these schools and colleges because they are some of the finest institutions of learning in the United States,” said Ferman. “These drug dealers, motivated by their own greed, sought to create a network to push poison into our educational institutions and take-over drug distribution on the Main Line. While parents sought to provide education to their kids, these defendants sought to use the schools to create drug addicts. The architects of the “main line take over project” had their chance at education and failed. They tried to infiltrate our schools, not for educational purposes, but to make money and to drag others into the downward spiral that their lives had become.”
Scott encouraged college sub-dealers to locate new customers and offered the sub-dealers incentives for locating new customers and making referrals. The incentives were lower prices for drugs and the opportunity to buy them on credit.
Text messages recovered during this investigation revealed that Scott gave Timothy Brooks business advice on how to expand the sale of marijuana in local high schools. Brooks in return, supervised sub-dealers who sold marijuana at the local high schools. Brooks supplied them with marijuana and encouraged them to efficiently distribute drugs at their schools.
The high school sub-dealers were encouraged to sell at least one pound of marijuana a week. Brooks encouraged his sub-dealers to meet their weekly quota. The incentives included a lower purchase price for marijuana in order to increase their profit margin.
Brooks allegedly instructed the high school sub-dealers to make certain there was always a constant supply of marijuana in their assigned school. According to investigators, Brooks said this was important to him because he remembered not always being able to buy marijuana when he was in high school.
From February 28, 2014 to April 9, 2014, detectives executed multiple search warrants and evidence of this drug trafficking organization was seized at 9 locations in the Pennsylvania Counties of Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Northampton, Adams, and Philadelphia, including the homes of Neil Scott and Timothy Brooks.
