HUDS Manager Charged in Drug Case

The manager of the Lowell and Winthrop House dining halls was arrested two weeks ago for allegedly trafficking 300 pounds of marijuana that authorities estimate is worth about $500,000.

Angelo Dalla Santa, 35, has not been working in the dining halls since his arrest on the night of Nov. 20, according to coworkers in Lowell and Winthrop.

“He won’t be back until at least New Year’s,” said Lowell production manager Donn Leonard.

Dalla Santa was apprehended near the Food Master on Alewife Brook Parkway in Somerville, along with two other men.

Each of the three were charged with trafficking of marijuana and conspiracy to violate the drug laws.

Seth I. Horwitz, a spokesperson for the Middlesex district attorney’s office, said authorities would not comment on the investigation, the specifics of the case or any potential sentencing, calling such speculation “premature.”

The arrests resulted from an ongoing investigation by Mass. state police assigned to the Middlesex district attorney’s narcotics unit, the Dracut local police force and the Federal Transportation Task Force.

State police investigators allegedly observed the defendants trafficking 300 pounds of marijuana in Dracut and near the Food Master on Alewife Brook Parkway in Somerville, where the three were arrested.

Dalla Santa was arraigned the following afternoon in the Somerville District Court.

He pled not guilty.

The longtime Harvard employee—Dalla Santa has worked for Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) for the past nine years—was held on $2,500 cash bail and is scheduled to return to court on Dec. 17 for a probable cause hearing.

HUDS spokesperson Alix McNitt declined to comment on Dalla Santa’s arrest.

Although dining hall employees declined to comment on the record, they were generous in praising their manager, whom one Lowell line worker called “a good friend of mine.”

“I miss him,” added another worker.

One Winthrop employee said she was worried after an HUDS administrator came to speak with dining hall workers.

“They didn’t tell us directly what happened,” she said. “They told us it was a ‘legal matter.’”

Another Lowell worker said she was not sure if she believed the allegations.

“When he’s here, he’s a nice person,” she said. “But I don’t know what he does when he leaves.”

Dalla Santa was born in the northern region of Italy and came to the United States in 1972, according to his autobiography in the Lowell facebook.

“I have two wonderful children,” the Somerville resident wrote. “One is just about three years old, the other two years old, and they keep my wife and me very busy.”

Repeated attempts to reach Dalla Santa for comment yesterday were unsuccessful.

—Staff writer Amit R. Paley can be reached at paley@fas.harvard.edu.