WCU football player busted for drugs
A starting member of the Golden Rams football team has been charged with dealing marijuana on the campus.
WEST CHESTER >> A starting member of the West Chester University Golden Rams football team has been charged with dealing marijuana on the university’s campus, the second time this month that campus police filed drug delivery charges against a student there.
The arrest Wednesday of starting safety Jordan Jamal Burney comes more than one month after a WCU patrolman found Burney and another man sitting in a car on the school’s South Campus smoking marijuana. When the arresting officer searched the car, he found a bag with 3/4 of a pound of dry leaf marijuana under a backpack that Burney had allegedly been using to hide the drugs, according to court documents.
Burney, 22, of Philadelphia, who sat out the football team’s Saturday’s 2921 victory over Shippensburg University after having started the first five games of the season, was arraigned by District Justice Bret Binder of West Chester along with his co-defendant, 25-year-old Terrence Brown Jr. of Philadelphia. Binder set bail at $10,000 unsecured and Burney was released.
He is charged with two counts of felony possession with the intent to deliver a controlled substance, as well as two counts of misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance, possession of a small amount of marijuana, and related offenses. A preliminary hearing for the two men’s cases has been set for Oct. 25.
On Monday, a WCU student from Caln was arrested on similar charges after campus police said they found him selling marijuana out of his room in the Brandywine Hall dormitory on South New Street. First-year student Zachary Given allegedly was promoting a fledgling pot business using flyers to let fellow students know they could get drugs from him in his dorm room.
A criminal complaint filed against him stated that on Oct. 3, WCU Officer Nick Denton found about a half dozen papers printed with an image of the Geico Gecko and the invitation, “If you need edibles or carts hit up your neighbor Zach,” with his dorm room number and his Snapchat identification.
Edibles are candies, baked goods or mints infused with THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and “carts” is an abbreviation for THC cartridges that are used in vaporizing pens. Are all illegal in Pennsylvania, unless used with a medical marijuana dispensation.
According to the complaint against Burney, coincidentally also filed by Denton, the incident occurred around 3 a.m. on Sept. 1 while he and WCU Officer Paul Solari were on routine patrol at the South Campus Apartments, located across from Farrell Stadium where Burney recorded three solo tackles and two assists in the Golden Rams’ 29-0 rout of Seton Hill University on Sept. 21.
The pair spotted a 2007 Buick sedan parked in a handicapped spot outside on the the units with its lights on and motor running. When Denton checked to see whether the driver had a valid handicapped permit, he shined his flashlight into the driver’s side window and saw a man, later identified as Brown, in the middle of rolling what appeared to be a marijuana cigar, the complaint stated.
Denton wrote that he also saw the front seat passenger, identified as Burney, stuffing a blue backpack in front of him at his feet under the dashboard as if he was attempting to hide the backpack or something underneath it.
When Denton asked the driver to roll down his window, he said he immediately smelled the odor of burnt marijuana. The driver, Brown, handed him the cigar he had been rolling and said, “Here, you can take this.” When Denton asked Brown to shut off his car, the driver became emotional and began to plead with the officer “not to do this.”
Brown and Burney were both taken into custody after they got out of the car.
Denton wrote that when he searched the car’s interior, he found a small amount or suspected marijuana in a sandwich bag; a box of sandwich bags, commonly used to package dry leaf marijuana; a small scale used in drug dealing; and a clear plastic bag with an estimated 320 grams of marijuana under the backpack he had seen Burney position under the dashboard.
That amount of marijuana could fetch between $2,000 and $3,000 on the street, according to a website discussing marijuana prices.
The two men were not immediately arrested the night of the incident. Meanwhile, Burney played in contests against Bentley University, Gannon University, Seton Hill University, and Millersburg and Shippensburg universities, all victories. A warrant for them was issued on Oct. 3, and the two were brought to Binder’s court on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for the university, Nancy Gainer, in a statement, did not address specifically Burney’s arrest, but said that the school is committed to maintaining an environment of teaching and learning free of illegal drugs.
“With an enrollment of more than 17,000 students, the University is committed to actively practicing core values that are followed by the majority of its students,” she said. “Individual actions that go against these inherent values are not supported by our community of learners. The university remains committed to encouraging all students to be law-abiding citizens, as is directly reflected in the WCU Code of Conduct, which, if breached, the university is fully committed to enforcing.”
Gainer also noted a number of steps the school is taking to enforce its drug-free culture, including running an Office of Wellness Promotion that coordinates ongoing messages and education related to drug use, alcohol use safety, and protective behaviors and expanding late-night and weekend “alcohol free” programming at Sykes Student Union.
Gainer said the school’s Office of Student Conduct “continues to work very closely with the West Chester University Police, West Chester Borough Police, and West Goshen Police to follow-up on all citations involving WCU students.”
University Athletic Director Jim Zuhlke did not return a call to comment on Burney’s status.
Burney, graduate of Bishop Egan High School in Philadelphia, is known as an “imposing defender in the secondary” on the Golden Rams’ webpage. He was listed as one of the top defensive backs in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference. His biography states that he has “taken more of a leadership role on defense this fall.”