Records Trail Students Despite Exonerations The Durham Police Department exonerated senior Eric Halperin less than a month after he was arrested and charged with trafficking marijuana and possession of marijuana with the intent to sell, but his name always will remain under a cloud of suspicion on the world's largest stage: the World Wide Web. A Google search of the key words "Eric Halperin" and "Duke" returns dozens of links related to the charges, ranging from news articles charting the course of the case to blogs sounding off on DPD's handling of the investigation. [continues 647 words]
Although friends call them "Harold and Kumar" after the marijuana-smoking title characters in the 2004 flick, two residents of Randolph Residence Hall said the substances seized from their room in an April 3 raid by Duke University Police Department officers were a far cry from contraband. Plastic bags containing "leafy-green vegetable matter," white powder and 119 unidentified pills were confiscated from the third-floor room, according to a police blotter. But the freshmen wrote in a jointly authored e-mail that what appeared to be illegal substances were merely oregano, powdered sugar and vitamin C supplements. [continues 419 words]
