Georgetown Law Student Sentenced For Drug Dealing

This morning we have a sad story of a young man with limitless potential who is now heading to jail. Georgetown law student Marc Gersen was Phi Beta Kappa at Georgetown and a champion debater who secured a scholarship to study at the University of California, Berkeley. He then entered Georgetown law school and worked with prisoners in the D.C. jail. That work however may have been a bit too close. Gersen was arrested and accused of using a social network to sell methamphetamine.

Gerson, 31, was arrested selling methamphetamine outside Beacon Hotel in Northwest Washington. In his exchange with the court in his sentencing hearing, Gerson said that he was using the drugs himself and that his sideline as a drug dealer took over his life. He appears to have become addicted to drug while in graduate school at Berkeley and later began selling methamphetamine. While he earned a master’s degree in economics, he dropped out of the doctoral program.

He was arrested for felony possession of ecstasy in California in 2009 and then later charged again with drug possession in 2010. It is not clear if these arrests were disclosed to Georgetown.

While at Georgetown, Gerson went to California several times to purchase methamphetamine and worked with others to distribute the drugs. Then the operation collapsed during Thanksgiving when Gersen was back in Florida with his family. Gersen learned that D.C. police had searched the 18th Street apartment he shared with his then-roommate and co-conspirator, Michael Talon. They found a small amount of methamphetamine, packaging materials and chemicals used to manufacture the drug GHB. Gersen returned to D.C. and withdrew $70,000 in cash from a safe-deposit box and transferred it to his mother. It is not clear where his mother thought this money came from but she was not charged. Gersen however did not do the logical thing and stop his operation. Instead, police got a tip that he was dealing at the Beacon Hotel. Police found more than 500 grams of methamphetamine.

Louis Michael Seidman, a Georgetown professor, wrote to the court on Gersen’s behalf, asking the court for mercy for “an extraordinary young man who has made some extraordinary mistakes.”

Gersen will now go to jail for four years by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton.

It is a sad case of wasted talent.

In terms of a different form of talent, the “Wingador” eating champ has been indicted on drug charges. Five-time wing-eating champion known as “El Wingador” has been indicted in New Jersey on cocaine distribution charges. William Simmons is charged with four counts of possession of a controlled dangerous substance and one count of manufacturing or distribution of more than a half ounce of cocaine.

Source: Washington Post