Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 24, 1991                   TAG: 9103240154
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: D10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: THOMAS BOYER LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

EVIDENCE IN UVA RAIDS NOT STUFF OF BIG DEALERS

But court papers filed as part of the federal government's attempts to confiscate the fraternity houses included little evidence that fraternity members were big-time drug dealers.

Most of the buys by undercover agents over the last year at the three houses involved small quantities of marijuana, hallucinogenic mushrooms and the laboratory-produced drugs LSD and Ecstasy.

Thursday's raids involved searches of every room, but appeared to produce no large quantities of drugs.

Police put the results of the raids on display Friday.

From the 25 residents at Delta Upsilon, there was a large, lamp-sized water pipe; two bongs and five smaller pipes; but only one bag, containing a few grams of marijuana. There also was a sign that had been modified to read "Thank You for Pot Smoking."

At Phi Epsilon Pi, investigators found a baby shoe with a bag of marijuana stashed inside, five water pipes and a scale. Hidden in one student's closet were marijuana seeds, growing equipment and a copy of `High Times" magazine - but no plants.

One court document described a party at Tau Kappa Epsilon in January in which an undercover agent found students smoking marijuana in several rooms, with doors open to hallways.

The agent "observed four women and a man sitting in the room smoking marijuana," then was invited by a man to "go upstairs and break out the Blue Monster," a large water pipe.

When the agent left the room he saw "a man and two women smoking marijuana from a bong in another bedroom. . . . [He] went downstairs and observed women and two more men smoking marijuana in yet another bedroom with the door standing wide open. . . . [He] saw people coming and going in and out of the various rooms in which drugs were being used with no restrictions whatsoever," a police affidavit said.

Authorities said what they called "open and notorious" use of drugs was part of what led them to seize the fraternities.

"Here's an undercover police officer going in and he has no trouble buying from all three fraternities, no trouble at all," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Sorenson.

Under federal law, property used in drug trafficking can be seized as part of a civil procedure separate from the criminal charges against the alleged dealers.

To get the property back, the owners - which include alumni and national branches - must prove that they knew nothing of the drug activities or tried to stop it, authorities said.