UC Santa Cruz student Austin Knebelman King was arrested by the UC Santa Cruz Police Department on Friday for possession of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance for sale. King was released from Santa Cruz County Jail at 6:42 p.m. Bail was set at $10,000.
According to a crime bulletin email sent to the UCSC community, UCSC PD received a tip from the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety and began investigating King for possession of MDMA and other narcotics. The arrest occurred at about 10:30 a.m. Friday at his dorm at Cowell College, where police confiscated an estimated $10,000 worth of substances. After issuing a search warrant for his dorm, police seized over 500 pills of Xanax and MDMA as well as marijuana, hashish and pain reliever pills. They also found packaging materials and scales that indicated possible narcotics sales.
UCSC police chief Nader Oweis was unable to comment as the investigation is ongoing, however he did say there is no known connection between King and the six UCSC students arrested on March 4 for drug trafficking charges.
No information regarding whether UCSC has taken any disciplinary action is released, said UCSC media relations director Scott Hernandez-Jason in an email.
“The campus has high standards for student behavior whether it is on or off campus, and we take allegations of drug dealing very seriously,” Hernandez-Jason said in an email.
King is a proposed computer science student who has attended UCSC since fall 2015.
