Frampton was arrested in Buenos Aires on January 23rd after police say that they found 2 kilograms of cocaine in a specially built compartment in his luggage before he boarded a plane to Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Frampton insisted that there was ample evidence of his innocence and lack of knowledge. The problem for the defense will be the weight and size of the cocaine. Two kilograms of cocaine translates into 4.40924524 pounds of the powder. That is not an insignificant amount to hide in luggage.
Having said that, it is not unknown for innocent tourists to be turned into unwitting drug mules without their knowledge. In this case, however, the drug smugglers would have had to gain access to his luggage to add the secret compartment either at his hotel or at the airport.
Notably, the university cut off his pay after his arrest. I am rather astonished by that action. Frampton is presumed innocent and it is now finding it difficult to fund his own defense. He has served the university well since his hiring in 1981 and held one of its top positions as a chaired professor. Frampton is reported as saying “The university has done nothing, absolutely nothing, to help me. You would expect a university of that caliber would do everything possible to get me out of prison.” I am not sure about “everything possible” but he has a going point about cutting off his $106,835-per-year pay. Notably, Frampton has continued to work on peer-reviewed publications with his colleagues while incarcerated.
Before you assume that a “phenomenologist” is by definition a narcotics suspect, let me clarify. Particle phenomenology is the field of theoretical particle physics dealing with the application of theory to high-energy particle physics experiments.
Frampton holds the prestigious Louis D. Rubin Jr. Distinguished Chair of Physics and Astronomy. Here is his “short” vitae:
Paul Howard Frampton – Louis D. Rubin Jr. Professor of Physics
Degrees
BA 1965 (Oxford Double First)
MA and DPhil 1968 (Oxford)
D.Sc. Advanced Degree (Oxford) 1984
Research AreasHigh energy theoretical physics including particle phenomenology
Theoretical cosmology
Research Support SourcesDOE grant, Principal Investigator since 1981
Five Representative Papers“Anomaly Cancellation and Conformality in Quiver Gauge Theories” (with E. Di Napoli) Phys. Lett. B638, 374-381 (2006). hep-th/0603065.
“Turnaround in Cyclic Cosmology.” (with L. Baum) Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 071301 (2007) hep-th/0610213.
“Dark Matter Candidate from Conformality.” Mod. Phys. Lett. 22A, 931-937 (2007). astro-ph/0607391.
“Flavor Symmetry for Quarks and Leptons” (with T.W. Kephart) JHEP 09:110 (2007). arXiv:0706.1186
“Cyclic Universe and Infinite Past.” Mod. Phys. Lett. A22, 2587 – 2592 (2007). arXiv:0705.2730
BooksGauge Field Theories, 1986, 2nd edition 2000, 3rd Edition 2008.
Dual Resonance Models, 1974, 2nd Edition 1986.
Major DistinctionsLouis D. Rubin Professorship
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science 1990
Fellow, British Institute of Physics 1986
DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator 1981
Fellow, American Physical Society 1981
200 refereed journal papers cited 5 thousand times
Total number of publications over 350
Major University ResponsibilitiesChair of Established Lectures Committee, 1992-97
Major External ResponsibilitiesWrote Science and Technology plank in National Republican (NR)
Platform. NR Convention, New Orleans 1988
Project director. Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) in North Carolina for the NC state government. May-August, 1987
Chair of the Organizing Committee for the following conferences: Eighth Symposium on Particles, Strings and Cosmology, 2001
Tenth and Last Workshop on Grand Unification, 1989
Third Workshop on Grand Unification, 1982
First Workshop on Grand Unification, 1980.
Source: Fox