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Two expelled in Sacred Heart drug incident

by Andrea Gemmet

Two students were expelled from Sacred Heart Preparatory for using marijuana, but there was no drug bust on the private Catholic school's Atherton campus, a spokeswoman for the school said.

Rumors about a drug-related incident were running rampant last week, but Atherton police contradicted key parts of the stories circulating through the grapevine.

There was no drug bust by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents, no arrests were made, there's no police involvement, and no large sums of money or cocaine were discovered, Atherton police Chief Glenn Nielsen told The Almanac.

School officials said the students' marijuana use did not occur on campus.

"It's grotesque rumors blown out of proportion," Chief Nielsen said. "If even 10 percent of the rumors were true, we'd be actively investigating it."

But there is no police investigation, he said. Atherton police Sgt. Kristin Nichols said on Friday, Oct. 30, that she'd been fielding calls from the community, but that she had no information about any drug busts. If the DEA had been involved, local law enforcement authorities would have been notified, said Chief Nielsen.

In response to numerous requests for comment, Richard Dioli, director of schools at the private Catholic school, issued a statement on Friday about an incident involving "marijuana-related activity."

"We conducted our own internal investigation and have asked these individuals to leave our school; they are no longer students at Sacred Heart Preparatory," Mr. Dioli said."

The Atherton police department is not involved in any kind of formal investigation on our campus."

School spokeswoman Millie Lee said that Sacred Heart has a strong relationship with Atherton police and always consults and cooperates with them in possible cases of illegal activity.

"We have never found any drugs or evidence of drugs on campus from these two individuals," said spokeswoman Millie Lee. "What we found were two individuals who have displayed inconsistent behavior with our school's goals and criteria and therefore they have been released as part of our student body."