Soph Could Face Two Years in Jail

Editor's Note: As of 2009, both felony charges against Siebach were dismissed in court.

An undergraduate stood before a Middlesex District Court judge yesterday morning to face a minimum of two years in prison for possession of marijuana and LSD within a school zone.

Flanked by two college-aged supporters who gave him pats on the back, Soren J. Siebach ’08 appeared before the judge without a lawyer in yesterday’s arraignment.

The judge insisted that Siebach hire a lawyer, stressing that if convicted, the minimum mandatory sentence would be two years in prison.

The judge offered to appoint him an attorney but Siebach declined, saying that he was already looking for one. The next pre-trial hearing is slated for April 10 in order to give the defendant enough time to find counsel.

“[Siebach] was released on personal recognizance,” Middlesex District Attorney spokeswoman Emily LaGrassa said yesterday.

But the judge warned Siebach that if he is arrested again before the pre-trial hearing, he will be jailed for 60 days without bail.

The judge also recommended that the defendant take a drug test. Siebach said “no.”

The defendant declined to comment yesterday,

Siebach was arrested last Friday night on drug charges after police found 38 “hits” of LSD in his Quincy House dorm room that same night, according to Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) spokesman Steven G. Catalano.

He faces up to 10 years in prison for possession of the hallucinogen LSD with intent to distribute, one year for possession of marijuana, and between two and 15 years for committing a drug violation within a school zone. The University-affiliated Radcliffe Child Care Center on the first floor of DeWolfe is across the street from Quincy.

HUPD officers originally reported to Quincy because of a complaint that a nude male was acting “in an agitated, incoherent, and violent manner,” Catalano wrote in an e-mail.

Officers attempted to subdue the undergraduate, who admitted to police that he was under the influence of drugs, but could not because the individual was too sweaty, police said. The student then allegedly struck two police officers in the face and head.

The student was subdued and transported to Cambridge Hospital for medical attention, Catalano said. HUPD will file criminal complaints for two counts of assault and battery against a police officer and marijuana possession.

Following the incident, police officers returned to the hospitalized student’s suite and found LSD in Siebach’s room. Siebach also reportedly handed over marijuana to the officers.

—Staff writer Noah S. Bloom can be reached at nsbloom@fas.harvard.edu.