Headline: teen friendship rooted in friendship? Try alcoholism.
Headline of the month:
“Teen Burglary Ring Rooted in Friendship.” So headlined the story reporting a gang of suspects arrested on suspicion of burglarizing Lindsay Lohan and other Hollywood celebrities from October 2008 through September 2009 on www.popeater.com. No it isn’t. The ring is rooted in alcohol and other-drug addiction, along with possible codependency; where alcoholism is involved, friendship is secondary. Most of the group, including Nicholas Frank Prugo, 18, Alexis Neiers, 18 (sister of Playboy playmate Tess Taylor), Rachel Lee, 19, Diana Tamayo, 19 and Courtney Ames, 19, were classmates at a continuation campus for high school drop-outs in Agoura Hills. Prugo pled guilty to possession of cocaine in February and agreed to an 18-month drug diversion program. Lee, reportedly the group’s leader, was arrested in Las Vegas with more than two hundred $100 bills and a vial of marijuana. Neiers, the most likely codependent, admitted in an interview that she needs “to make some better friends and some better decisions as far as my friends go.” On the other hand, she may have been more forthright than the rest only because she was arrested on the set of a reality-show pilot for E! television with the cameras rolling. Ray Lopez, a 27-year-old bartender, is accused of helping the teens fence the stolen goods, the price tag for which is expected to total several million dollars. Police served search warrants at locations in Los Angeles, Calabasas, Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park and Las Vegas and found guns and narcotics in at least one of the locations.