Salesmen for Bogus N.J. Corporation Canvass Yard With Magazine Offers

The University police yesterday warned undergraduates that a group of youths, representing a bogus company, had solicited freshmen both Wednesday and yesterday to buy magazine subscriptions.

Late yesterday afternoon, police Lt. Joseph F. Kenney said, "Arrests have been made," but would not elaborate further on the phony solicitors.

Ostensibly funding a New Jersey-based heroin addict rehabilitation program, "four to six" individuals in their early twenties approached an unknown number of freshmen with offers of cut-rate periodical subscriptions, Kenney said.

The police began a search for the youths after one of the freshman buyers reported the enterprise. Efforts to trace the United Sales Association, Inc., of Cherry Hill, N.J.,--the title on the sales receipts--through the New Jersey police revealed that the firm was nonexistent and that the address listed was that of a delicatessen.

"They get a freshman who hasn't been around the City long," Kenney said yesterday. He also noted that a similar operation hit the Yard last year.

Cambridge police also took part in the search.

University police Sgt. Lawrence J. Murphy, who is investigating the case, said last night that most of the sales occurred in Lionel, Matthews, Mower, Stoughton, and Thayer Halls. Students who engaged in transactions were encouraged to cancel their checks.

Kim G. Davis '76 of Thayer who thought he bought three years of Sport Magazine for $16, said yesterday he was approached by a man who appeared to be around 21 years old.

"He said he was an ex-heroin addict--on heroin for eight years--and that if he got 20,000 points selling magazines he would get a $5000 scholarship to go to the University of Pennsylvania," Davis said.

"You see all these things on Dragnet, but he looked and seemed like a really good guy," David lamented.