Christopher Duncan of Copiague, NY is thanking his lucky stars that he was born a white, rich, child. This week, his lucky accident of birth earned him a free pass in a federal drug court that fell all over itself to spare him the humiliation of going to prison for knowingly breaking the law.

A former University of Vermont student, Duncan, was running a cocaine trafficking operation out of his frat house back in 2007. Local authorities raided the house the week of graduation finding it full of drug paraphernalia, coke, and cash. In danger of receiving some serious jail time, the judge let him off with 100 hours of community service and two years of probation.

District Court judge William Sessions III saw fit to take it easy on the young cocaine trafficker because he was “a stupid kid” and, as he said to the defendant:

It shows your lack of serious involvement and your absolute naivete, frankly.

Speaking of naivete, one wonders why judges find their soft streaks only when faced with the Caucasian Children of the Rich? Couldn’t a little leniency be in order for the bus baggage-handler busted by the DEA for passing along small packages of contraband? What about the church minister that set up a little weed garden for some of his sick parishioners? Or any number of low level street dealers who were certainly naive, certainly bit players in their own little neighborhoods. Where is their leniency? Where is the compassion for them?

The simple truth is, what was going through this young man’s mind when he decided to play Blow Daddy with the local sorority girls, is the same exact thing that goes through the mind of every aspiring drug dealer, large or small. It’s a mixture of greed, opportunism, and indifference for his fellow man. Once this mindset is in place, it’s all just a question of scale; of entrepreneurship. And when the hammer comes down, it’s all a matter of skin tone.

On Tuesday, Pedro Covil, 24, dodged spending 56 and a half years behind bars when he entered a plea agreement that gave him ten years for first-degree cocaine possession with intent to distribute, second-degree conspiracy to distribute drugs and second-degree possession of a firearm while distributing drugs.

It all started May 21, during Operation Blood Money, a six-month investigation led police to the arrest of 61 people and the seizure of more than 6.5 ounces of cocaine, ecstasy, heroin, marijuana, two handguns, ammunition, gang-related materials, and $6,772. Police found 43 packs of heroin and about 19 grams of cocaine, along with a loaded .38-caliber handgun with ammunition in Covil’s home safe. Another 4.5 ounces of cocaine was stashed at another location, in New Brunswick.

Sentencing for Covil is on June 26th. Covil would have to serve five years of that sentence before he could be eligible for parole.