Stony Brook Student Sold Drugs Over Social Media From Dorm: PD

STONY BROOK, NY — A Stony Brook University student was arrested on over a dozen drug charges after investigators found a stash inside his on-campus dorm room, Suffolk police said.

“We had information from one of the students, which highlights that everybody on the campus is involved in security, and I really commend the student reaching out to the university police to alert them that someone was selling drugs on campus,” Acting Police Commissioner Stuart Cameron said at a news conference on Friday.

Stony Brook police contacted Suffolk police's Narcotics Section detectives last month about a student" possibly selling drugs on campus," police said, adding that it was later determined Domingo Zaba, 41, who lived on campus, was "selling drugs over social media."

Zaba was arrested Thursday and investigators seized drugs including fentanyl, cocaine, mushrooms, Xanax, ketamine, amphetamines, marijuana, and THC edibles that were found during the execution of a search warrant of his dorm room, Cameron said.

Cameron commended the Stony Brook Police Department in “bringing us to a successful conclusion as quickly as possible.“

Undercover officers arranged to buy cocaine from Zaba, originally from Mastic, on campus about 4 p.m. on Thursday, which led to his arrest, Cameron told Newsday.

"I truly believe the campus is a very safe place, but if Mr. Zaba had been allowed to operate selling drugs to students it would have resulted in someone being harmed or killed," Cameron told the outlet.

Zaba, a transfer student in his first semester at the university, had a roommate who shared the dorm but police said the person was not involved in the operation, Newsday reported.

Zaba told the police that the narcotics in his dorm room were his, not his roommate's, according to court records obtained by Newsday. Zaba had a criminal history that included low-level drug offenses police told the outlet.

Zaba was charged with 15 felonies — including three counts each of second-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, and one count each of second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, and fifth-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance.

He was also charged with three counts of seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor.

Zaba was placed on supervised release with global-positioning system monitoring and he was ordered to return to court next Wednesday, Newsday reported.

“Getting ahead of this and having this investigation now, before the individual could do more damage and impact our students more broadly, is a testament to our cooperation and our agencies being able to work together,” Stony Brook University Chief of Police Lawrence Zacharese said.