LORI PILGER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, December 29, 2005 6:00 pm
A grand jury in Idaho indicted a former Lincoln man on an involuntary manslaughter charge for the 2004 death of a college student.
Cameron Jester, 19, pleaded not guilty earlier this month and has been set for trial in May. Jester, who lives in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, stands accused of supplying a designer, hallucinogenic drug similar to LSD that left 18-year-old Gloria Discerni in a coma.
She died two days later when her family asked that she be taken off life support.
According to the Spokesman Review in Spokane, Wash., police arrested Jester at the hospital after he admitted providing the drug at a party Oct. 12, 2004, near the North Idaho College campus in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where he and Discerni were freshmen.
Police said Jester told them they willingly ingested drops of the drug, mixed in orange juice.
A judge sentenced him in May to a suspended 2½-year prison sentence and gave him probation for possession and attempted delivery of a controlled substance.
Coeur d’Alene police originally recommended manslaughter charges be filed, too, but prosecutors were waiting for autopsy results, which they got in September, according to the Spokesman Review.
The new charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
According to press accounts, police at first thought Discerni died of an LSD overdose, but the drug later was found to be 5-MeO-AMT, according to the Spokane Medical Examiner’s report.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the drug is an hallucinogen commonly called alpha and typically abused by teenagers and young adults.
Jester went to Lincoln Southeast High School in 2001-02 as a sophomore, and his parents live in Lincoln. They could not be reached.
Reach Lori Pilger at 473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com.