If you haven't heard already, folks, the DJK Era is over, and it is over in jaw-dropping fashion. As Marc Morehouse has reported over at the Gazette, Derrell Johnson-Koulianos and his roommate were arrested today on a slew of drug charges, including possession of cocaine:
Johnson-Koulianos faces seven charges: four counts of possession of controlled substances, two counts of unlawful possession of prescription drugs and one count of keeping a drug house. These are all misdemeanors.
Investigators found more than $3,000 in cash, marijuana, cocaine and prescription drugs in the house during the search, police said. The circumstances which prompted the search were not known Tuesday night.
Officers located a small amount of marijuana in Johnson-Koulianos’ bedroom. Upon arrest, Johnson-Koulianos told police he smokes marijuana and that he’d smoked it within the past 24 hours.
A urine test administered by arresting officers showed a preliminary positive for marijuana and cocaine, criminal complaints state. Johnson-Koulianos admitted to using cocaine after investigators found residue of the drug in his bedroom, complaints state.
Johnson-Koulianos told arresting officers that various prescription pain killers and muscle relaxers police found in his bedroom were also his, and that "he gets them from friends" and takes them without having a prescription.
Officers also reported finding "electronic media" showing Johnson-Koulianos in possession of cocaine and marijuana, complaints state.
Ughhhhhhhh. As you can probably guess, Kirk Ferentz suspended the living hell out of DJK, and it's extremely unlikely that he plays in the Insight Bowl. And really, that's the least of DJK's worries at this point.
What's surprising is just how much drug use DJK admitted to right off the bat. He's taking drug tests, admitting to taking the drugs, admitting to taking more without prescriptions... basically admitting everything, really, without putting the burden of proof on the police. This could be the wisest move in the long run in terms of getting clean and honest with himself about what was going on, but drug convictions are life-wreckers, and DJK doesn't appear to be doing much to fight anything in front of him. Maybe the cooperation buys him some leniency from the judge and prosecutors. Maybe I've been watching too much of "The Wire" recently and I assume all lawyers are Maury Levy. Maybe.
At any rate, let's hope that the bad news stops here, and that DJK finds some way to get some of those charges to go away. I'm sure other people around here are more knowledgeable about the probability of that. It's just incredibly depressing to see DJK's career end like this, and whatever mitigation can take place would be most welcome.
Also, I really, really hope this level of drug use was isolated to DJK, as the football team goes. We're talking about some awfully destructive habits here, and even though DJK's performance on the field didn't seem to be affected week-to-week -- he was five receiving yards away from having this be his most productive year as a Hawkeye across the board -- heavy drug use doesn't exactly have a great track record of ending well, and the last thing the program needs is more players getting nailed for using dangerous substances (most of which are illegal for perfectly good reasons).
There's really no telling what the next day, week, month, and year hold for updates to this story. "Nothing" would be good. I hope there's nothing more to come out. Someone with DJK's personality doesn't seem like the type to do things in a vacuum, though, and that's what worries me in terms of this mess affecting other players.