EPIC MISTAKE

Student Left in DEA Cell Gets $4.1M

Seems appropriate for having to drink his own urine.

On April 21, DEA agents raided a house in San Diego and seized a smorgasbord of drugs including about 18,000 ecstasy pills, prescriptions, mushrooms, and marijuana—not to mention a number of guns and thousands of ammunition rounds. They also detained nine people and then left one of those people, Daniel Chong, alone and handcuffed in a holding cell for five days without food or water. The dehydrated and abandoned 25-year-old lost 15 pounds, drank his own urine, and even carved “Sorry Mom” into his arm with a piece of his broken glasses before he was discovered by the authorities who’d forgotten about him. Now Chong, who was never even arrested or charged with a crime, has settled a lawsuit against the DEA for $4.1 million. “This was a mistake of unbelievable and unimaginable proportions,” said his attorney.