Sam Jennings was a brilliant young biotech student at Freemont University. The only son of single mother Antoinette Jennings, Sam was eager to bring success to his mother and willing to do whatever it took to get ahead. While researching a memory drug called N-73 for the Rossum Corporation, Jennings and his partner Owen Johnson came up with the idea to sell the drug to Rossum's rival, Switzerland-based Bel Med Tech. However, Johnson got cold feet, fearing that Rossum would come after him, and was contemplating giving Sam's name to them to save his own rear end. Sam thus poisoned Owen with the memory drug, causing the young man to commit suicide. Unfortunately, neither man realized that the drug's effects could be transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, and when Owen released a swarm of infected flies before killing himself, the flies spread the N-73 throughout the Freemont campus, causing a number of students to experience hallucinations and extreme euphoria.
Captured after his actions were exposed by Echo, Jennings was brought before Adelle DeWitt, who'd been exposed to the drug. Not too thrilled about the embarassing behavior the drug caused her to display, DeWitt offered Jennings a choice of either becoming an Active for five years or being sent to jail. Jennings has presumably chosen the former option.