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Man Busted for Growing Pot to Pay Off Student Loans

November 17, 2011, 1:08 pm

A Massachusetts man, Michael A. Vivenzio, was sentenced last month to 2½ years in prison for his role in a sophisticated marijuana-growing operation in Portland, Ore. According to an article in The Oregonian, Mr. Vivenzio told Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas H. Edmonds that he moved to Oregon and got into the pot business because he had racked up some $100,000 in student loans.

Portland vice officers seized a total of 831 plants from Mr. Vivenzio’s home and two others where he and an associate, Jason J. Kalenkowitz, were growing marijuana. Investigators arrested Mr. Vivenzio last year at his home, seizing a loaded 9mm pistol that was hidden in his sofa. They also seized $72,000 in cash from Mr. Kalenkowitz, who was sentenced to more than four years in prison, and $27,000 from Mr. Vivenzio.

According to The Oregonian, the IRS reported that Mr. Vivenzio had managed to pay down $80,000 in student loans.

—Don Troop

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  • 11245928

    Jeepers. Up north you could always plug cars in. You might have to dig them out of the snowbank, however.

  • kozirice

    Illinois Institute of Technology is also planning several charging stations on our main campus in Chicago; this is a part of the University’s overall sustainability plan.

  • 5768

    Excellent post. Those promoted from within can become the pillars upon which the university rests and upper administration relies, although not without serious drawbacks from a faculty perspective. As repositories of the inner knowledge and secrets of how the local university works and how to get things done (from anything as simple as classroom scheduling to governance issues, policy knowledge, research budget and overhead matters, grants management), unless the accumulated knowledge of those so promoted moves beyond their own persons and circle and is shared with university faculty, it does the latter no good and can in fact cripple the latter. In cases where insider promotion dominates and cards are held too close to the chest, one cannot help but wonder whether a deliberate mechanism of faculty control has not been found.

  • raza_khan

    I agree.   This can go either way purely dependent on the internal candidate.  There are some who I would love to move on but then others who will / do horrendous job at the higher level.

    Raza
    __________________________
    Raza Khan, Ph.D.
    Dr.Raza.Khan@gmail.com

  • schwerdt

    And then there’s the model where the President chooses Deans on an interim basis (to see to what extent they will go along with his orders), and then boots them out (or they quit). I have had 5 Deans in 10 years. It’s absurd.

  • db_palmer

    So, does he default on his student loans? That’s the real question.

  • chemistry_guy

    Crap.  Now the price of pot will go up.

  • huntbull

    Yes, but what was his major?

  • akprof

    Some people would praise his entrepreneurial spirit and his responsibility in paying his off loan. Come to think of it, I kind of admire him.

  • guangtou

    Mr. MV probably did not earn a business degree, because the yield and $80K shows poor finance skills. Let’s leave illegal activities where they belong…with Congress.

  • blesstayo

    If growing and selling pot is such a lucrative business that requires no college degree, may be legalizing it would help reduce unemployment and US deficits (they must pay taxes!).

  • Brian Abel Ragen

    The headline, “Arrested Pot Grower Gives Lame Excuse” might be more accurate and less tendencious. It would also show what a flimsy peg this incident is on which to hang an education story.

  • awegweiser

    Apparently crime in Portland is rather low so the law must keep busy by going after pot growers. This entire part of the bogus “war on drugs” is a waste of time, effort, money and ever more overcrowding of prison space for law violations that should, at the very least, be only restricted to probation, house arrest or (best of all) community service.  The operators that make bags of money off badly run private prisons (of course, “corrections” facilities) love it, I’m sure.

  • perryclark

    crime doesnt pay

  • lkvamme

    Hey, that was my idea! (only kiddin’…don’t get all excited now…)

  • hmcleaver

    A few years ago I had a student who was paying his way through college by flying pot across the border from Mexico to Texas. I discovered this the day he came to tell me he had been caught and sentenced to prison and to ask if he could complete his work in my course while there. I, of course, said sure thing. Then we discussed other possible independent study courses he might pursue while locked up.

    As it turned out he was incarcerated in a low-security prison near Dallas where he was put to work alongside other prisoners making uniforms for the Contras – the illegal terrorists organized and funded by the Reagan Administration as a part of what later became known as the Iran-Contra Scandal. Bored with sewing, this young fella snooped around the prison – which was located on an old Air Force base -  and discovered a still-functioning flight simulator. When he proposed to the warden that he could train other prisoners to fly in the spirit of rehabilitation via learning new skills, he lucked out and got an OK which allowed him to escape what he found to be the odious task of supporting terrorism.

    Now, guess who were his most enthusiastic students? You got it, guys who had been caught smuggling pot across the border by truck or boat and who wanted to diversify their transport options! Malcolm X was right, it seems, when he called prison the “university of the working class.”

    At any rate, “awegweiser” is quite right that while profitable for the prison industry (and the drug cartels, as it keeps supply down and prices up) the so-called “War on Drugs” is a waste a time and resources – both human and monetary. Better to legalize all drugs and then spend time and money figuring out why so many Americans feel the need to resort to them – from alcohol and caffeine through uppers, downers, painkillers, glue and pot to cocaine, meth and heroin to make it through their days and nights. Of course we don’t want to do that, because it would reveal the alienation and desperation that pervades American capitalist society.

  • achilton1987

    so instead of ‘war on drugs’ it will be called ‘war on people who will continue to grow pot but not pay taxes’

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  • soonerdgs

    So did the government refuse to take the $80,000 in drug money that he used to pay down the student loans?  And if not, maybe they can take the $27,000 they seized from Vivenzio and finish paying off his student loan. That way they won’t have to come after him for defaulting on his payments while he’s in jail…  

  • sstop

    Setting up electric charging stations is a great idea but we need more wireless ones.

    Servicing Stop

  • http://twitter.com/digisolutions Digi Solutions(Unni)

    Many charging out let in  Tennessee and Pennsylvania  units for Volkswagen is sitting unused. 
    What is the point in having mores
    Volkswagen
    Service

  • http://www.servicingstop.co.uk/jaguar_service.html Jaguar Service

    Its not only in North also in Down Town. Jeepers be prepared 

  • http://www.servicingstop.co.uk/porsche_service.html Porsche Service

    we all will be using electric cars in the future…. efforts of these universities are appreciable

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