Crime

Two SU students arrested on drug charges during investigation of student death

UPDATED: April 17, 2:46 a.m.

Two Syracuse University students were arrested this weekend on drug charges as a result of an ongoing investigation into the death of an SU freshman, the Syracuse Police Department said Tuesday.

There is no indication that criminal activity was involved in the death of Marianne Guppenberger, 19, of Taipei, Taiwan, police said. Guppenberger died in the early morning of April 6 after falling out of a window in Brewster Hall.

One of the students who was arrested sold marijuana to a friend of Guppenberger. The other sold illegal mushrooms to the same friend, police said.

Police are still awaiting the results of Guppenberger’s toxicology test.



Cameron Moulene, 19, a freshman in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, was arrested for criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third and seventh degrees, and unlawful possession of marijuana on Saturday, police said. Police executed a search warrant and found marijuana, a few tablets of Adderall and $5,000 in his room, police said.

Moulene was arraigned and held on $10,000 bail, police said.

Bronic Roberts, 18, a freshman in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, was arrested for criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fifth and seventh degrees, and unlawful possession of marijuana on Sunday, police said. Detectives found drug paraphernalia, marijuana, one-eighth of an ounce of mushrooms and $1,000 in his room.

Police said Roberts admitted to selling Guppenberger’s friend mushrooms.

The two students have been suspended and removed from campus, Kevin Quinn, senior vice president for public affairs, said in a statement.

“We take matters such as this seriously and have assisted the Syracuse Police Department in their investigation that led to these two drug-related arrests,” Quinn said in the statement.

When Department of Public Safety officers initially went to Roberts’ room in Brewster on Friday, Roberts was in Albany, N.Y., for a funeral. His roommate, Austin Tousaw, a freshman information management and technology major, said he returned to their split-double at about 5 p.m. to find officers searching the room thoroughly.

Officers then took Tousaw to DPS headquarters for questioning, he said.

The next day, a residence hall staff member called Tousaw and advised him not to stay in Brewster out of concern for his safety. The lock on Tousaw’s door had been changed. Given that Tousaw held the only key to the door, police feared Roberts would try to reach his roommate to enter their room.

“I wasn’t worried until they said don’t be in Brewster Hall,” Tousaw said. ‘The university definitely had me worried.”

Tousaw said he saw Roberts in the back of a DPS car when leaving Brewster on Sunday at about 3 p.m. This was the first time he had seen his roommate that weekend.





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