Original subtitles

REPORTER: A lifeless body of the sorority girl,

better known as Jenny, was discovered in her apartment

on the San Diego State University campus.

[music]

ALAN POLESZAK: When you hear a young kid

about the age of your own

dead in a dorm room from an overdose?

Yeah, it hits home.

- PRODUCER: One, take one. - Okay.

PRODUCER: Um...

I suggested that we do

a long-term narcotics operation.

I was very quickly told, no.

You don't ask permission to go after crooks.

Before anybody else dies,

we're gonna do this thing.

REPORTER: For months, investigators infiltrated

broad narcotics networks,

many of them operating out of fraternity houses.

There was a coke dealer in all the top houses.

REPORTER: Nineteen-year-old Kenneth Ciaccio

allegedly organized the drug ring.

I mentioned, you know, I do have a connection

if we wanna sell some cocaine.

His eyes light up.

REPORTER: Police say Ciaccio advertised cocaine sales

using cell phone text messages.

From now until midnight Thursday,

grams are 35, eights are 110,

quads are 210, so stock up.

[chuckles]

Unbelievable.

These individuals have preyed on students--

What were you thinking?

--and have ruined hundreds of lives.

[music]

There is no place in the world

that is more exciting or thrilling

than sororities and fraternities.

But you don't know what actually goes on behind closed doors.

All of Greek life

has some sort of a tradition of secrecy.

MAN: This was a powerful organization.

I mean, it was a serious cover-up.

The amount of power that the fraternities have,

it's so thoroughly woven into the nature of the universities.

ALAN: There is always the same playbook.

DISPATCHER: 911. What's the address of your emergency?

They start the cover up. Nobody talks.

Hazing is a huge problem

and it's resulted in tragedy.

Someone was burning a cross on the lawn.

They would grab their members,

force their face down

and make them do a line of cocaine.

It felt very sadistic.

He wanted me to be hurting.

WOMAN: You sent your kid off to college, and this happens?

[music]

I was a patrol sergeant

on duty that morning

with the San Diego State Police Department.

The day before was Cinco de Mayo.

There were several parties in the area that day

and throughout the evening.

FORMER SERGEANT: The call came out that,

uh, there was a female down

unresponsive and not breathing.

[sirens wailing]

When we arrived on scene, it was obvious

that she had been dead for several hours.

Um, rigor mortis and lividity had set in.

Her name was Jenny Poliakoff.

She was a member of Alpha Phi.

And Jenny was on the floor.

We were told that it was an overdose.

I'd been to a lot of death calls,

but for some reason this just felt very different.

I had a niece that was about the same age at that time.

She may have even had, you know, some resemblance to my niece.

For some reason, it just, you know,

was a little more, um, real.

The day that I found out

was probably within an hour or two hours

of her passing.

Jenny was a freshman.

She was pre-med and she wanted to be a child psychologist.

She was just such a compassionate, kind person.

She just wanted to make people smile.

She was one year older than me.

Jenny was our ticket to college parties at that time.

You just go into these houses

and they're packed full of people,

and it was very known that there were drugs.

It wasn't like a big deal.

But Jenny is not the person that you expect

to die from this type of death.

I've had some contacts at Alpha Phi

and as far as I could, you know, piece it together,

a member of Alpha Phi

was supplying their sorority sisters with cocaine.

There was a pool party.

They'd been using cocaine throughout the day.

And then they had a formal that evening

where the drinking and drugs continued.

She had some of the neighborhood of 18 to 22 bumps of cocaine.

Just like with any drug, you don't know

how much is too much, how pure it is.

Jenny's case was too much,

so things were spiraling out of hand with the drugs.

Every year we would make a lot of arrests for possession,

and a large number of my arrests

came from people that were involved in the Greek system.

I remember hearing from one of Jenny's sorority sisters

that during her induction into the sorority,

there was a line of cocaine put on the toilet seat

and they would grab their members by the hair,

force their face down into it, make 'em do a line of cocaine.

The track that they were on

and that university was on at that time

had some type of terminal velocity.

I mean, it just-- it just kept accelerating

and it was getting worse.

So I decided to uproot the people

that were preying upon these kids.

My name is Kenny Ciaccio.

And in the fall of 2006, I went to San Diego State.

[music]

KENNY CIACCIO: I lived in Tijuana till sixth grade

when my mom met my stepdad.

And we followed him, uh, to Chula Vista,

which is south of, uh, San Diego.

I don't think anyone in my family

had gone to college till then,

so I always felt like, um, an outsider.

I remember moving into the dorms

with hundreds of other wide-eyed kids.

I was excited.

San Diego State was lovingly referred to

as S-T-D-S-U.

As you can imagine from the name,

everyone, uh, partied and things got a little crazy.

In 2006, I believe we were ranked number five

in terms of all the party schools by Playboy.

I mean, everyone knew about it on campus.

It was kind of a source of pride in a weird way.

The Greek system had a lot to do with that reputation.

San Diego State certainly

from an outsider's perspective weren't doing much

to try and fight their stereotype as a party school.

And frankly...

they wouldn't be the only campus to do that, right?

I mean, uh, campuses in need a niche

and being known as a party school's

not necessarily a bad thing

if you're--if you're trying to get foots in the door.

KENNY: Freshman year during recruitment week,

each fraternity has their personally designed pop-up tent

with their colors and their letters on the top.

When you're walking by, girls stop by and say hi to them.

And you just see the social aspect of them.

I specifically remember

that's where I met the guys from Theta Chi.

Theta Chi had the two actual one story houses

where they connected in the back.

ANDREW: These houses look like [bleep].

They were painted this ugly gray.

We had dirt in our backyard for, uh, for a backyard.

Theta Chi literally was known as a dying house

because, uh, nationally we're actually a tri fraternity.

I decided to try to make it better

and become an officer and more involved.

What we started doing to kind of reel people in

was really just partying with 'em,

um, because that's what people want at the end of the day,

and that's what they expect from fraternities.

KENNY: They mentioned, we have our real parties

at this brother's house down the street,

and that was our--my first introduction of Thunderdome.

ANDREW: The satellite house

was, uh, affectionately called Thunderdome,

which comes from the movie Mad Max.

We could drink, we could have fun,

and we wouldn't have to be afraid of, you know,

particular officers, uh, within the fraternity

who, you know, wanted to keep that, that tri house mentality,

um, you know, we could kind of do our own thing.

KENNY: I went to a couple rush events,

but once I got into the Theta Chi party,

I just never really wanted to look anywhere else.

And closing out the semester,

I became an official member of Theta Chi.

That first semester after you're in,

it seemed like, um, you know, it's a party every weekend.

I would go with my other buddies to their fraternity parties,

and you would see people doing cocaine.

ANDREW: At the time, there was a coke dealer

in all the top houses.

I mean, I knew the one in Sigma Phi.

There were ones all over the place.

But being involved in the parties at Theta Chi,

you never really saw drugs.

Theta Chi did not have the best reputation.

Our parties were not, uh, up to par

with the rest of the fraternity row.

We weren't pulling the hottest chicks.

Going to other fraternity parties,

you could see what drives the social atmosphere.

You see that the girls going some lines of coke

and whoever supplied that

is usually the life of the party

or at least the center of attention.

As a freshman, seeing this, it was exciting.

I wanted to put myself in those shoes.

ANDREW: Think about it. You--you're a guy.

You've got, uh, a baggie

and then girls just magically follow you.

You know, yeah, you know, you have to give

something up for that.

But hey, in their minds, you know,

you can at least talk to these girls

and, you know, get to know them.

What's the icebreaker? Cocaine.

KENNY: At the end of the day, there's a competition

of who can get the best girls at their parties

and who can have the best image

to the new classmen coming in, you know.

And being a 19-year-old wanting to be the popular kid,

I wanted to be the one with the drugs,

with the money, with whatever you needed

to have to be popular,

that's where I wanted to get to.

And if it was money or drugs,

you know, I was gonna chase both.

I just had to figure out how I was gonna do it.

Growing up in Mexico,

cocaine is on the news every night.

REPORTER: Tijuana has become a focal point

of increasing violence.

It's a drug trafficking powerhouse

across the US border from San Diego.

There's either someone who got caught with it,

someone got killed over it.

Once we got to the US,

my hometown actually Chula Vista,

one out of ten, it was like,

you know, well, they're making their money from trafficking.

DAMON MOSLER: Chula Vista,

which is one of our southern communities

adjacent to the border, was growing tremendously.

And some of the money that was coming in

from Mexican cartels was being used to buy houses

for temporary storage locations for the drugs

once they had made it across the border.

Living in South San Diego, Chula Vista,

I had the connection already to where the drugs came from.

After going through frat row

and seeing the drugs so prevalent

and knowing people from back home

that would be able to supply it,

it was really just nailing down the details.

I just didn't have the startup cost

of selling cocaine it was gonna take.

[music]

KENNY: I remember having a conversation

before one of our parties with my friend.

He had just gotten a, uh, large settlement for a car accident.

That's when I mentioned, you know, I do have a connection

if we wanna, um, sell some cocaine.

That's what all the other fraternities use

to get their name out, so why not us?

We talked about how, uh, this will be a perfect way

to try to get some, uh, return on that settlement check,

and his eyes light up.

I called my buddy from high school

and we got a half pound,

which is about 225 grams.

We gave him around $6,000 at the time.

We just put it aside and drove back all the way

to, um, Thunderdome.

I remember my heart beating off the top of my chest

the whole drive back to San Diego State.

I was excited to see what this held.

I definitely wasn't thinking about the consequences.

I remember walking into the house where everyone was,

and I remember just seeing a big brick.

At that time, I knew at least one coke dealer

in most of the fraternities, so I was like,

"Oh, well, I guess we get our own."

So it began.

At the beginning, you know, it was all just close friends.

We all--we all had the two or three buddies that did coke.

And once you let your two or three buddies

that did coke know that you're selling,

they're gonna tell their three buddies each.

And by, you know, the first two, three weeks,

we probably had thirty, forty customers.

It was all text message-based.

I lived in the fraternity house,

so if I knew the person coming in the house in the room.

If it's a new person, you kind of wanna meet 'em

outside the house.

And our house got an alley in the back

where, you know, we met most people.

We started with those 225 grams, $6,000 worth

turned into almost like $15,000.

Not like we asked permission

from the house or anything,

but we also didn't hide it.

From the beginning, there was always the disapproving eyes,

you know, from our president or for the older classmen

that really didn't wanna see much things change.

ANDREW: Would we really call the police on our own brothers?

I don't think so. That's kind of a betrayal.

But changing of the guards is what really happened.

Um, all of our old officers were voted out

and we had new ones voted in.

From there, Kenny was sergeant-at-arms,

I was vice president.

So our parties were getting better

simply in the fact that we were having them.

And Kenny did have a big reputation on campus,

so there was definitely a buzz

about, you know, his product, I would say.

It was also a, I think a great way to pull the house together

because deep down inside, all of us really wanted this.

We could wear letters around campus

and actually feel like people recognized,

you know, who we are.

So with a bigger party comes better atmosphere,

comes the better girls.

With drugs comes the sex,

and with sex comes drugs.

ANDREW: I never ever thought

that Alpha Phis would come over to Theta Chi.

And when I saw them starting to come over with Kenny

is really when I started to realize

that the house was moving in the direction

that we kind of wanted.

KENNY: Now it's towards the end of my freshman year

and we're probably selling a quarter pound a week,

which means $3,000 profit.

I guess during the time you almost feel

a little, you know, untouchable.

The campus has its own, like, police department

that you never really thought

were, you know, real cops like the outside

and it seemed like you couldn't get away with a lot more things.

I'm sure the universities benefit

from being known as a party school.

And, um, at the end of the day, we supplied the parties

that become national news

and that get 'em the attention that the new freshmen

or, like, the recruits are looking for.

The fact that a school has been identified as a party school

is almost a wink and a nod to the Greeks

that enforcement of student code of conduct

has been passed on by the university,

that they can engage in a variety of activities

that are never gonna truly be investigated,

never truly going to be disciplined.

You know, unless your product is really killing someone,

people don't care.

[music]

REPORTER: A lifeless body of the sorority girl,

better known as Jenny, was discovered in her apartment

on the San Diego State University campus.

JENNA PUGH: Jenny's funeral

was at the synagogue in Poway.

Just the amount of people that show up

and the amount of people that are crying

and there to bury Jenny

just speaks volumes to the type of person that she was.

And I'll never forget that day.

To have to actually physically bury your friend,

somebody who you've spent weekends with,

somebody you've seen laugh,

to know that their life just stopped,

I was angry.

Where did these drugs come from?

Who's responsible for Jenny's death?

I remember seeing her picture and recognizing her.

I definitely knew people that knew her were shocked

because we all thought,

"What happened to Jenny was really tragic."

FORMER SERGEANT: After Jenny's death,

I remember--I reached out to the lieutenant

and I asked him, "What steps do we take from here?"

And he said, you know, "We're just gonna call

"the medical examiner, we'll write an incident report."

And that was the end of it.

It just felt funny, you know, an incident report?

Like, that can't be the end of it.

I didn't think her story should end with an incident report.

She was somebody's child.

She was somebody's sister.

As a police officer, it's part of who you are

to try to prevent it from occurring again.

We did a good job at making arrests

for possession,

but it was hard work

trying to pinpoint where the drugs are coming from.

I approached several supervisors

and suggested that we do a long term narcotics operation.

I was very quickly told, "No, that's never gonna happen.

"That's too political."

When kids go to college, there's gonna be some drinking,

there's gonna be some partying.

But I think if you unveil a larger issue

like cocaine and overdoses and things like that,

that can impact an institution financially.

Universities see themselves as being partners

with the sororities and fraternities.

And they make a lot of money for them.

They don't want bad press.

They often defend themselves as separate organizations,

but there is a fairly significant payroll

at the university that is there essentially

to promote those organizations.

FORMER SERGEANT: The administration

would have to admit that there's a problem.

Nobody wants to send their kid somewhere

where they have a drug problem.

When you have a department

that's connected to a larger institution

like San Diego State,

you're only gonna go as far as they'll let you go.

You're not gonna do anything

that's going to embarrass them politically

but I continued to push.

I wasn't gonna give up.

I wanted to make sure that we saw this through to the end.

In September of 2007,

I had become the sergeant

in charge of the special operations unit there

with our department.

And I wanted to do something

about the drug problem on campus.

I did bring it to my chief's attention.

He very simply said,

"You know, there's a problem here.

"Address it.

"But you see these students every day.

"It would be impossible for us

"to work in an undercover capacity

"because they would recognize you."

So I reached out to the DEA.

The San Diego State Police Sergeant called me

and asked if we could help him.

He told me what his problem was.

What killed Jenny Poliakoff was cocaine and alcohol.

Well, I can't do much about the alcohol.

But we can go hunt the guys that are slinging the cocaine.

We got to see the numbers,

the number of cases that they had coming in,

the number of calls related to overdoses on campus,

not fatal ones.

And the number of contacts

the San Diego State Police Department

had the students who relayed the drugs.

And that gave me a picture that it wasn't strictly

an isolated incident.

Cocaine was prevalent, so was Ecstasy,

so was methamphetamine,

which surprised me on the university campus.

For me, having young people die needlessly

is not acceptable and we can do something to change that.

And we need to.

We needed to try to figure out,

was this an isolated couple of guys doing it?

Was it a big organization?

We didn't know.

And I thought, I think I have just the group

to go on down there and clean that up.

DAMON: I had a feeling that the university administration

would view this as a negative to the university.

They would give the university a black eye

and they would mar the reputation.

That struck me.

Young kids shouldn't be going to college and dying.

We just came back from summer break

and we've had a whole semester of dealing.

There's more buzz around the house.

And you could see the benefit from the buzz around.

Our very first rush week, our pledge class

went from like 14, 15 in my class

to, like, the high 30s in our very next class.

To think, you know, in a weird way, morale went up.

KENNY: Once we were in, we--they weren't shy

about showing the profits from it.

You go to Pacific beach

and you have three or four girls with you

and your two buddies.

And by the end of the night,

you know, I would have a couple thousand-dollar tab.

You're floating a little bit higher than everybody else.

You have a secret that you're hiding from everyone.

You haven't been put in jail or gotten in trouble over it.

Nothing was gonna stop us.

[music]

The way the investigation started was exploratory.

To take down an organization,

you start by identifying it

and you use informants

or undercover buys to identify who it is you're dealing with

and what it is they're doing.

We inserted an undercover on campus to buy drugs

at a very low level, here, there, or anywhere.

Her story was that she was a community college student

who was planning on transferring to San Diego State soon.

To get in initially,

she made a phone call

to a number we had identified

from a source and asked to buy drugs.

And they said okay.

And then, she went down and bought drugs.

Then she did it again.

And one thing led to the other.

We talked to informants,

talked to people who knew things.

We identified what the sources of the cocaine were.

And that ended up being the fraternities.

There's probably a lot of circumstances

where you can find a favorable situation to sell dope,

but this was a really good one.

All the elements were there to make a lot of money

easily and relatively safely.

The environment was secure and refined.

The customer base was there and had plenty of money.

They were selling to people that they "knew" or felt they knew.

DAMON: Fraternities are a brotherhood.

You take an oath and there's an allegiance

that's ascribed to the inner fraternity to your brothers.

And that's helpful if you're conducting criminal activity.

It is the perfect storm for something awful to happen.

[siren wailing]

On February 24th, 2008,

we responded to another student, a male,

Kurt Baker who was found deceased

at one of the fraternity houses there.

REPORTER: Tragically, a second college student

died of a cocaine overdose in a fraternity house this year.

Kurt was a guy who was in Sigma Pi,

and there was a lot of drug use in that house.

I know one guy in the house who used to sell cocaine.

ALAN: I thought this is a problem.

We've identified it.

It's developing into a significant trafficking group

that's having an impact on these kids and it's dangerous.

It made us think that we were in the right place

at the right time doing the right thing

but we were just running out of time.

I had informed my chief.

I said, "Hey, I need to tell you about an operation

"that we're doing with DEA."

And he told me he didn't wanna know.

And that was his response on a couple occasions.

DAMON: He was a concern that people who were not

immediately part of the operation will tell people.

So as we develop any operational plans,

we wanna keep the circle of people who know things limited.

The less people that know, the better.

The last thing I wanted to happen was some administrator

at San Diego State to get--got wind of what

we were doing and burn the whole thing down.

[music]

You would always have the stranger approach you

at the random fraternity party,

coming up to me, looking for cocaine.

I would say, you know, "Get the [bleep] out of here.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

But if they come with their friend,

that's a different story.

[music]

Beginning of April, our undercover

was introduced to Ken.

This girl called me up and said,

"My friend from Mesa College would like your number and,

"you know, they're looking to pick up some cocaine."

And I said, you know, "If you can vouch for her,

"then yeah, feel free."

DAMON: She bought a couple grams of cocaine from him,

gave him cash.

All of that was recorded.

As the case progressed, a second purchase

was made from Ciaccio, and that was a larger purchase.

Our undercover officer had bought an eighth of an ounce.

At that point, she asked Kenny to get large quantities.

You wanna get an idea of how strong

this guy's connections are

and where can we go higher than him.

KENNY: She asked me if, you know,

if I could get a bigger amount.

And I said, "Sure, no problem, I could even get

"a quarter pound if you want."

If this guy could do that much weight

to the kids on that campus, he's a significant player.

[music]

By that time, I'm looking forward

to our formal dance that's gonna be at the Tropicana

in Las Vegas and I'm looking to get rid of everything

that I had in my possession and turn it

into actual dollar bills before we headed out of town.

Towards the end of April, it turns out that

the undercover agent had received a text message.

The group supervisor came skipping up to my office

and said, "Get a load of this."

DAMON: I'll read it to you.

"Attention faithful customers.

"Both myself and my associates will be

"in Vegas this coming weekend.

"Bad news is we will not be here to complete sales.

"Good news..."

"Is from now until midnight Thursday,

"grams are 35, eights are 110, quads are 210, so stock up.

"We'll be back Sunday night."

[laughs]

Unbelievable.

I can't believe I actually even wrote the prices.

I think Ciaccio and the others felt exactly

like they were untouchable.

They took advantage of the fraternity

environment to very good effect.

They're not worried.

They're talking to their customer base.

They're fine with them.

And they were really I think

arrogantly complacent.

With the focus increasingly on Theta Chi,

if Ken was unavailable, our undercover was able to buy

from other people.

Kenny had a group working for him

and he was the ring leader.

As April concluded, we were able to determine

that the transactions that occurred involving nine

different fraternities and our undercover dealer,

over a hundred thirty drug transactions buying from people.

That's a lot of drug transactions during basically

a four-month period.

We knew that at some point, we were gonna have

to take action because the end of the year would come,

the students will scatter.

By May 2008, we were planning to take down

the case and we knew it was gonna be a big one.

So we picked a date and it turned out intentionally

to be the anniversary date of Jenny's death.

We picked May 6th.

We wanted it to have some meaning to it.

And then it was decided that we would have a meeting

with this--the administrative staff of the university

and tell them that

this was going to happen.

I can understand why some of the university administration

wasn't thrilled with what occurred,

thought the negative publicity would be bad

for the university or felt that they could handle things

internally but the fact is, that really didn't happen.

That hurts recruitment efforts.

That hurts safety statistics.

That hurts people looking at their school as donors.

The hope is that they would be actively trying

to prevent it or correct it.

They knew they had some ODs on campus.

They knew there was-- there were drugs on the campus

and I think there's a certain level of, "Oh, crap."

But, did we need permission

from the San Diego State hierarchy?

No.

We're not asking anybody for permission.

You don't ask permission to go after crooks

before anybody else gets in trouble and dies.

We're gonna do this thing.

Cinco de Mayo usually always comes around the week

of finals, you know, a US-made holiday for US drinking.

[music]

KENNY: All the brothers were throwing a party at Thunderdome.

Everyone was pretty trashed and sloshed.

I think we all probably ended up going to bed

maybe around, I don't know, 4 o'clock in the morning.

[crickets chirping]

[music]

Whenever you have a large scale arrest

and takedown, you have to have a place

to process people before you take them to jail.

And so what was used was underneath the basketball arena.

The entire area was set aside.

ALAN: Cars are rolling in and people are lining up

and everything's being set up.

Here we go.

FORMER SERGEANT: And just the sheer number

of officers and resources that were available

and present that morning was actually overwhelming.

And then they rolled out.

All the cars rolled out one time and went to various locations.

ALAN: I went to Theta Chi because it was the biggest one.

That house had a very expert group of agents

going in that were handpicked for that task.

And if something spot out, I knew they could handle it.

They rolled up an individual, cars parked, everybody gets out,

lines up, knock notice on the door,

which is, "Police search warrant.

"Open the door."

[bird chirping]

KENNY: About 5:15 in the morning,

my phone's vibrating.

I just remember looking over to it and it said,

"Cops raided frat row."

And I don't think I had finished reading

the message where I heard the front doors just boom.

I remember waking up, being half awake,

hearing metal against metal as they bashed the gate in.

About 10 seconds later, there were just flashlights

all up in my room.

ANDREW: They were screaming, like, "Get the [bleep] - now!

"Get your ass out! Get your ass up!"

They grabbed me and my girlfriend.

They threw us on the floor, handcuffed.

They're like, "What's your name?"

"Uh, Kenny Ciaccio."

"Oh, oh. [makes noise] We got 'em."

They all were very, very shocked.

Their rarefied little world was pierced suddenly.

They zip-tied everyone, you know,

regardless of who you were.

They lined us all up on a wall.

It was crazy.

ALAN: Everybody gets secured.

They're all seated down somewhere,

and then the search begins.

KENNY: Your flight-or-fight risk kicks in and the first thing

you're doing is deny, deny, deny,

"Well, I don't know what you're talking about."

And then, you know,

I look up and the next person that's gonna ask

the following questions is the actual undercover

that I sold drugs to.

I was just, "Oh [bleep]."

They did know about Thunderdome.

They left and went to go check out that other house.

At Thunderdome, the search yielded cocaine,

a handgun, and cash.

And there was a process lab there too,

where they, you know, cut it.

Later on, inside the Theta Chi house, they found a shotgun.

It was stacked up against the wall somewhere.

It indicated to me that they were prepared to use them

if they had to, to protect their dope, protect their operation.

The fact that we found firearms shows us the danger

that's associated with dealing drugs, and for it to be on

the university campus was even more alarming to us.

KENNY: They just moved me from my room.

I'm handcuffed behind my head and I just recall

asking the cops, you know, "Do you think

"we're gonna get out by, you know, 3:15

"when my final starts?"

And they would just laugh.

REPORTER: A major drug bust today at a big

West Coast school, close to 100 arrests there.

ANDREW: They took us to Viejas Arena

and that's when, you know,

and that's when, you know,

I started seeing everyone else

who was, you know, kind of swept up in the drag net.

I had already heard that they had raided fraternity row,

but pulling into Viejas Arena and seeing 60 people

that you could tell had either been crying or pepper-sprayed,

all in handcuffs waiting to be processed.

This operation set on fall resulted in the arrest

of a hundred individuals involving distribution

of cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, and methamphetamine.

And seizures so far to date

are over 350 ecstasy pills,

over two kilograms of cocaine,

50 pounds of marijuana,

30 vials of hash oil,

four handguns, shotgun, and over 60,000 in US currency.

MAN: We do have several different groups at play.

Ciaccio was one of the Theta Chi.

He was one of the senior people involved in Theta Chi

in terms of the drug dealing.

He was at the top of the hierarchy there.

Other ones weren't necessarily as sophisticated.

FORMER SERGEANT: And the feeling was overwhelming.

It was very satisfying to see that something that we had put

so much work into was finally going to have a conclusion.

It felt like I had definitely done something

for Jenny, for her name.

REPORTER: This may be the face that launched one of the biggest

drug trafficking investigations on an American college campus.

When the news came out all over the TV,

all over the internet, it was shocking to me

because it just kind of makes you realize

how bad the situation is.

I think people casually using drugs,

you kind of think that this is just what college life is.

But the amount of drugs and the amount

of people that were being affected by this operation,

you realize this is not normal.

This is--this is out of control.

My reputation is kind of going down

and it's kind of a sad day for the school.

The atmosphere on campus

afterwards was one of shock, disbelief.

I was shocked when I heard about it,

especially the fraternities that they were focusing on.

I think that's something that needed to be done

when you have two students die from drug overdose.

That's obviously a problem.

Kenny Ciaccio was charged with both transactions

of selling to the undercover officer

and possessing that same drug for purposes of selling it.

REPORTER: Also a member of Theta Chi, Kenneth Ciaccio

is accused of being the ringleader of cocaine sales.

The county jail, the first news report

that I saw by myself, they were saying that

I was looking at like 19 years in jail.

It's when it--when it really clicked that I was

not going anywhere for a while.

We are determined to remove people from our community

who place our students at risk,

and to see that they are turned over

to the criminal justice system.

The health and safety of our students

at San Diego State is our highest priority.

None of the administrative people at San Diego State

had anything to do with the inception of this case.

They got involved at the very end

and tried to spin it to their advantage

because it was embarrassing

and they tried to make the best of it

and turn it into a positive thing.

[music]

I'm in handcuffs and they had handed me

an envelope with my expulsion.

It said, "You've been expelled from San Diego State,

"and you're actually barred from any Cal State campus."

ANDREW: I was suspended from San Diego State.

I wasn't expelled.

I believe they only expelled people who were--who were having

dealing charges of which I was just a possession charge.

There was probably six to eight brothers from Theta Chi

that were arrested that day.

Everyone who got arrested was kicked out

of the house by the national chapter.

It was kind of a moot thing because the national chapter

didn't pull our charter.

The university I believe did,

and they didn't allow us to exist on the campus.

MAN: Next, number 12.

ALAN: I think it had a--it hit a nerve

in a variety of different ways in the community.

When people read the newscast about Jenny, Kurt,

and what happened, I'd say we're glad that somebody stepped up,

and you got to hand it to the sergeant.

He stepped up.

I absolutely believe more people could have died,

been injured, had this operation not happened.

For a short amount of time, this drug bust was impactful

and made it harder to get drugs 'cause it's hard to find

those things if you don't have it at your fingertips.

So, yes, if this would've happened

sooner, would Jenny still be here?

Probably.

I truly believe that.

[music]

Most of these people didn't have records

and if the transactions weren't huge quantities,

they were not probably likely to go to prison.

ANDREW: I ended up getting back to the university.

I had a great lawyer.

The charges were eventually dismissed.

I mean, my life wasn't ruined.

I don't know if other peoples were, but, you know,

for the five years after that, it was pretty rough.

[music]

KENNY: I get sent to a county jail.

It was an eye-opening, shocking experience.

You're in your cell 23 hours a day and it was tough.

I called my dad, but he really wanted nothing

to do with me while I was still, you know, in there

and had just dragged the family name through the dirt.

MAN: Mr. Ciaccio was identified early on in this investigation

as being a major source of supply on campus.

KENNY: I plead to one felony count

of possession with intent to distribute.

During the sentencings, the judge opted

to just go with a hundred and eighty days.

She says, "I'm gonna let you do it at a halfway house."

So I was able to go out for work and school, sign up for,

you know, a couple units at the local community college.

We weren't trying to lock these kids up forever for dealing.

We're trying to raise awareness, get their attention,

but also to prevent other people from using drugs on campus.

I think we slapped a lot of people

who needed to get slapped.

It was important.

I think it sent a message and I hope some kids took it

and bettered themselves for it.

It did hurt looking--knowing that I was not gonna be

considered second class moving forward.

It always lives in my mind what my mom said when I got out and,

you know, it was, "What were you thinking?

"What were you thinking?

"What were you thinking?"

And I've really never had an answer, you know,

'cause what was I thinking?

We were just young and dumb.

[music]

REPORTER: According to the LAPD,

the bodies were pulled from the surf around midnight.

WOMAN: The big sisters did not tell the police

what actually was going on.

They were hazing them.

WOMAN: You endure the abuse, being hit,

being punched, being paddled.

You will do anything to be a part of this organization.

People are getting hurt in D Nine groups,

but we are not gonna talk.

This cover up was so deep,

it was like running into a brick wall.

WOMAN: They're lying, they're hiding.

I wanna know the truth.

[waves crashing]