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The father of one of the accused student kingpins in a Penn State cocaine trafficking ring allegedly helped dig up his son’s safe that was buried with loads of cash and then carted it off, a witness has testified — contradicting a previous claim that the dad simply acquired it cleaning his boy’s room.
The safe allegedly belonged to 23-year-old Thomas “T-Robb” Robinson of Pittsburgh, one of the dozen Delta Upsilon students accused of running the coke ring out of the the Delta Upsilon Fraternity House at the mega-university.
His fraternity brother, Ryan Matson, testified Wednesday that he took the safe into the woods and covered it with leaves after Robinson’s arrest in 2024.
He said he later returned to the site with Robinson’s dad — prominent Pittsburgh lawyer Paul Robinson — to dig it up and that the father then took it away, according to TribLIVE. The current whereabouts of the safe are unclear.
Matson’s testimony came during a pre-trial hearing at which a Pennsylvania judge eventually ruled there was enough evidence to send Paul Robinson to trial for felony tampering and hindering apprehension.
Paul’s lawyer, Michael DeRiso, previously told The Post that his client was given the safe while he was cleaning out his son’s frat room after his arrest. DeRiso has argued there is no evidence the dad knew what was in it at the time.
Thomas Robinson and Long Island 24-year-old Agostino Abbatiello of the Sigma Chi fraternity were allegedly the main suppliers in the drug ring, with Abbatiello frequently traveling to Philadelphia and New York to pick up large quantities of cocaine from sellers between 2023 and 2024.
The ringleaders — who also include Mohammed Huraibi and Lars Zeepvat — made cutting and packaging cocaine part of the hazing process for fraternity pledges, authorities said.
Matson told the court he took Thomas’s safe to the woods after Robinson’s arrest and that he didn’t know what it contained but that Thomas told him it was full of cash.
Thomas told a grand jury that he had locked about 100 grams of cocaine and between $5,000 and $10,000 in the safe, senior state Deputy Attorney General Megan McGoron told the court Wednesday
A total of fourteen people face charges for alleged involvement in the drug ring, including Paul Robinson, his son and a dozen other students.
“I have not lived a perfect life by any means, but the claims and reports about me are not true,” the dad said in a statement. “I respect the law more than anyone as those that know me I think would say.
“I tried to do everything right after my son was arrested 2 years ago, and I look forward to telling what actually happened when we have that opportunity.”
