DELTA UPSILON CLOSES IOWA CHAPTER FOLLOWING POT BUST

Dan McCarthy, Manley Burke

Delta Upsilon recently closed its chapter at the University of Iowa after four members of the chapter were arrested following a December drug bust at the chapter house.  Police raided the chapter house and found 650 grams of marijuana, cash, packing materials, scales and drug-deal ledgers.  Stephen Boyler, James Goetz, Joseph Hillegas and Arthur Kerwin were charged with possession and/or conspiracy to deliver marijuana and failure to affix required tax-stamps to the drugs.

Justin Kirk, Delta Upsilon’s Executive Director, stated in a press release that they closed the Iowa Chapter because “[t]he actions and decisions of these men are incongruent with the mission and values of Delta Upsilon Fraternity.  Substance abuse does not have a place in our Fraternity.  Our mission is to build better men through our four founding principals of Friendship, Character, Culture, and Justice.  Unfortunately, this was not happening in our Iowa Chapter.”  The fraternity hopes to return in the future, but is uncertain of what they will do with the chapter house in the mean time.

Dealing drugs out of a chapter house, such as alleged in this case, creates the possibility of a federal forfeiture action under 21 U.S.C. §881(a)(7) and 18 U.S.C. §985.  The United States Attorney’s Office in Vermont recently filed such a forfeiture action against the Lambda Iota Society at the University of Vermont.  Chapters must be diligent to ensure that their members are not risking the entire chapter’s existence by bad decisions of only a few members.