HIGH-PROFILE SEMINOLE DRUG BUSTS FIZZLE OUT

SANFORD -- The undercover sweeps at Oviedo and Seminole High Schools
last spring made for flashy, high-profile arrests, but of the underage
students who were busted, only four have not accepted plea deals.

And those drug cases still awaiting trial in juvenile court certainly
seem anti-climactic compared with the splash sheriff`s investigators
made when they ended their seven-month undercover investigation.

Still pending is the case of a 17-year-old student charged with
selling two of his prescription anti-depressant pills to an undercover
officer. Also still open is that of 17-year-old boy who promised to
deliver $30 worth of marijuana but managed to scrape together enough
for just one or two joints.

Six months after the arrests hit evening news and the front page of
the newspaper, most of the students arrested on drug charges have come
and gone through the criminal justice system.

In all, 33 people were arrested, 24 of them juveniles.

All told, 24 people -- 20 juveniles and 4 adults -- have agreed to
plea deals. All but two have walked away with sentences that require
no jail time. One juvenile, a 17-year-old Seminole High student with
at least one prior arrest, was sent to a home for juvenile
delinquents.

And one adult -- Danny Hampton, 19, of Oviedo, who has been arrested
before and since on drug charges -- was sentenced to 100 days in jail
for selling $25 worth of marijuana to the agent working undercover at
Oviedo High.

None of the defendants has stood trial. That`s still possible. Three
trials were scheduled in juvenile court this week, but each was pushed
back because of either plea negotiations or to give defense attorneys
time to gather more evidence.

A number of attorneys have alleged their clients were entrapped by the
undercover officers -- two young Seminole County deputies who enrolled
in school, posing as students. No one, however, has proved the
officers did anything wrong.

Assistant State Attorney Jack Kaleita, the prosecutor overseeing the
adult cases, said he had seen no evidence of entrapment.

One of the juvenile trials was delayed this week so a judge could go
over the phone records of the agent who enrolled in Seminole High.

Attorney Joerg Jaeger says those records may help prove the agent
contacted his client, a 16-year-old Seminole High student, 17 times
over three weeks, pressing him for drugs.

She asked him for cocaine and Ecstasy, two things he said he could not
get, Jaeger said. The defendant took $20, saying he`d try to find
marijuana for her, but after several days tried to give the money
back, but the agent would not accept it, Jaeger said.

In the end, he sold the agent four anti-depressant pills, two from a
17-year-old friend with a prescription, according to an arrest report.
Both defendants are now charged with sale of a controlled substance.

Attorney Stanley Silver represents the 17-year-old with the
prescription. He said Wednesday that prosecutors had offered to place
his client in a pre-trial diversion program -- meaning if he stays out
of trouble for six months, they would drop the charge.