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
What Mike said.
And Tony? Apparently you’ve never met a meth addict. It’s not a substance that engenders logical thought. Quite the opposite actually. While not directly neurotoxic, part of the side effects are lesions on the brain. Most doctors will tell you meth use doesn’t raise the question of “if” it will make you schizophrenic but rather “when”. It is an insidious and, yes, evil substance.
People are driven more by emotions than intelligence; your rational mind can really only help to invent alternatives and point out risks and likely consequences, but the emotions are king. If the rational advisory does not trigger negative emotions to fight the positive anticipation, the game is lost.
Addictions become addictions due to positive emotional feedback, they cause the release of dopamine that makes people feel good. Addiction is an emotional drive to increase dopamine levels in the brain; some drugs kill dopamine receptors or cause the brain to release higher levels of dopamine antagonists, and so the addiction escalates.
If he was smarter, he would have taken a controlled dose of meth that was just enough to satisfy his addiction long enough to rationally commit himself, irrevocably, to some course of action that would break his addiction. It is a pity he did not apply his intelligence to his own dilemma.
If we REALLY concerned with talented folks going to prison for drug dealing, there would be an entire website dedicated to it instead of just one post on a blog. Of course, since a good number of those folks are African American, I doubt the same level of care and concern would apply – even if they too were in law school. #doublestandards
Awfully stupid activity for a presumably bright young man. Sad.
Mike and BFM:
Again, the reason for his low sentence could only be due to him snitching out others. It is euphemistically called ‘substantial assistance’.
5K1.1–Substantial Assistance to Authorities:
Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has provided substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense, the court may depart from the guidelines.
Mike, you know that addiction is treated as a criminal issue because of the hangover of moral opprobrium that attaches to “illegal” drug us (i.e., pop all the prescription meds you want and we’re all cool worth that) among the populace and therefore the PTB. Or is is the other way around??? And since the criminalization of behavior, and the private industry that has grown up to service the output of the so-called justice system has been far more lucrative and sanctimoniously wielded than the manby-pamby treatment component (which is seen as a reward rather than a punishment for the evil of addiction), poof, we get more of the same.
You could take all the so-called drug experts in Washington and it would be hard to find a seriously powerful voice for sanity. Hint: the PTB don’t want to hear it because, truth is, it shows them up for the (ignorant) hypocrites they are.
“You could take all the so-called drug experts in Washington and it would be hard to find a seriously powerful voice for sanity. Hint: the PTB don’t want to hear it because, truth is, it shows them up for the (ignorant) hypocrites they are.”
Don,
Amen again and again. We declaim people as experts when they clearly have a vested economic interest in the dumb policies they promote.
And what Mike S. said.
Again:
“End the “War on Drugs” now!”
Apparently addiction played a part in his crimes. But there are also reports that he felt he was too smart to get caught.
One has to wonder whether addiction or arrogance was key to his downfall.
His sentence demands attention. The WAPO reports that he could be out as early as 2014.
My recollection is that this web site recently reported the story of a woman, who was only peripherally involved in distribution due to her boy friend who hid drugs in her apartment, yet received decades – essentially a life sentence.
Something is going very wrong with our criminal justice system when
minor actors receive decades,
key player receive a few years at club Fed, and
bankers who run money laundering programs to enable world wide distribution of drugs pay fines or receive no punishment at all.
I would argue that the single most important factor enabling drug distribution today is DOJ and the choices government attorneys make in prosecuting participants in major drug distribution organizations.
As for Gerson, it is not necessarily a tragedy that he will likely never work for a white shoe law firm. When we consider his apparent intelligence and capacity for work, my guess is that he will eventually find a place to apply his background in economics and law.
In a few years we may be hearing much from Mr. Gerson. I hope so.
“How can someone so smart be so stupid?”
That’s easy. He’s a meth addict. This is a waste of talent. For those indicating it’s no different than thousands of other cases–they’re right! Time to realize the War on Drugs is a huge failure.
To continue to do the same thing after it has been proven to be a failure over and over again, is insanity. End the “War on Drugs” now! Yes this white male got an “easy” sentence based on his skin color and his economic class, but to focus o that misses the point. Humans have been using and inventing mind altering substances for millenia. It’s part of what many people do. Providing they do not hurt anyone in the course of their use, it’s one of society’s damned business. I say this as a somewhat expert in this field since I have actually run large drug treatment programs and have extensively worked with addicts. It is a futile, zero sum game for the most part and best treated as a medical/psychological issue, than a criminal one.
The “War on Drugs” actually creates more addictive behavior than acting as a means to prevent it.
Four years for over a pound of meth?
The ONLY way he could have gotten this sentence was by ‘substantial cooperation’. Meaning he had to snitch someone out and get them in more trouble than he was in.
It used to be a major mark against one to be called a snitch, now it is socially acceptable, believe it or not even in prison since so many of them have done it. It is the new normal.
It took 13 years of prohibition, to find out it was never going to work. They didn’t repeal prohibition because booze was determined to now be healthy for people. They repealed it to get rid of all the crime & corruption associated with it.
And all the cost in policing, prosecuting, and imprisoning people.
Would you sentence a guy that offered you a beer from his sixpack to YEARS in prison?
Well before prohibition it would have been legal to offer the beer, but during the 13 years of prohibition, he could have been sentenced to YEARS in prison for offering you a beer.
Now of course it’s legal to again offer your buddy a beer from your sixpack. No prison sentence.
See? The morality of the situation NEVER changed, ONLY THE LAWS!
And since when is having the punishment worse than the offense done any good? Authorities always say how drugs destroy people’s lives, and YEARS in prison don’t?!?!
We need to legalize ALL drugs…(please don’t freak out and think I mean they ALL should be freely available)
If they WANT to be medicated, fine…lets get the freaks off the worst of this stuff, so they aren’t out killing innocent people!
Not any more sad than the thousands of clients I’ve worked with who are shipped off to jail and prison. Of course, they don’t have all this tremendous promising talent. There just ordinary folks who get hooked up in the great American drug scene.
Mr. Gersen can still make wonderful contributions to society (though it’s so much harder with a record) though not as the highly respected cloak of a lawyer he would rather have donned. And even as a lawyer, are we sure he would have worked for the benefit of society?
Sorry if I’m a bit grumbly this a.m.
Fortunately for Mr. Marc Gersen, he will be fine after he comes out of jail (at least according to the following study):
“White Convicts As Likely to Be Hired As Blacks Without Criminal Records”:
http://www.dmiblog.com/archives/2007/09/white_convicts_as_likely_to_be.html
It also speaks to the student demographics at GU Law School (for 2012 records, it is less than 8% African Americans), and why the admission council continues to pass over minority candidates without a criminal background (and yes, background checks are done on all students).
Why is this sad? Do most drug dealers have law professors writing pleas of mercy on their behalf because they supposedly made mistakes? No. He got a light sentence. Perhaps he can use the time in prison to repent of his mistakes.
That old saying “too smart for his own good” seems perplexing but it also fits sometimes.
wasn’t his first offense, caught him dealing and manufacturing with 500+ grams and he only got four years.
he got off lite.
Well, he can now use his talents in prison as a real jailhouse lawyer. He can consider it something akin to a post grad course in learning. Hopefully, he will not get to join the ranks of lawyers once he gets out, since he has shown a persistent inability to understand the rules and reasoning of law. Worst case scenario, he becomes a prosecutor, then ALL of us are at risk of jail.
“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.” Jonathan Turley
Perhaps background checks should be part of the admission process.
Four years seems light given todays drug hysteria and similar cases.
He probably needed the money to pay for law school, I hear its pretty expensive. But this probably shoots his ability to get a license to practice. How can someone so smart be so stupid?