By LAURA ITALIANO
Last Updated: 1:38 PM, July 19, 2011
Posted: 11:17 AM, July 19, 2011
The 20-year-old who’d faced the most serious drug sale charges in last year’s roundup of five Columbia University students is heading to Rikers for just 3 1/2 months under a deal struck in a Manhattan courtroom today.
Harrison David, son of a Boston-area plastic surgeon, had been a third year engineering student when he and four buddies were busted on charges they sold felony-weight quantities of coke, pot and pills out of their frats and apartments.
David — charged with selling just under an ounce of cocaine to an undercover on one occasion, and four grams in a second sale, for a total of just over $1,300 — pleaded guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court to criminal sale of cocaine.
He’ll turn himself in on August 30, and will be sentenced to six months jail and five years probation under a deal struck with the citywide Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.
With good behavior and factoring in the two weeks jail he’s already served, he should be released after 3 and 1/2 months, said his lawyer, Matthew Myers.
Prosecutors has last month demanded David serve a full year of state prison and two years probation.
“While it will be less incarceratory time, an addition of three years of monitoring (via probation) will be in the interest of justice,” said lead prosecutor William Novak.
David has been suspended from Columbia since his arrest in December; he expects to be expelled now that he has entered a guilty plea, Myers said.
“It’s going to be difficult,” the lawyer said of David’s prospects in finding another school that will accept a student with a felony drug conviction. “And you’re talking about a brilliant kid.
“Hopefully, someone will take a chance on him at a smaller school,” the lawyer said.
Charges remain against the other four young men; prosecutors say they would agree to no-jail deals for them providing they still plead guilty to felony drug charges.
Reposted from: The New York Post
Attorney for the defense: Matthew D. Myers