HEROIN-COCAINE PROBE Police round up drug-ring suspects

Police battered their way into a house that had been under surveillance.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A New York to Youngstown heroin-cocaine pipeline broke today with the federal indictment of 73 men and women -- 57 of them from Mahoning and Trumbull counties and western Pennsylvania.
Three teams from the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force hit the streets just past sunrise to start making arrests. Their counterparts in New York were also out making arrests, mostly in the Bronx.
All defendants are charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin or cocaine. The penalty is a minimum of 10 years in prison up to life.
Many of the defendants are charged with distribution of heroin or cocaine and several are charged with firearms violations and money laundering. Local defendants live in Youngstown, Boardman, Campbell, Brookfield, Girard, Lowellville, Struthers, Poland, Austintown, Hubbard, Niles, Sharon and Sharpsville.
House
After task force members used a battering ram to enter a house at 1203 N. Garland Ave. today, they seized firearms, suspected heroin and, by 10:30 a.m., roughly $62,900 in cash, said Bob Magnuson, head of the task force. The resident was not charged but is expected to be indicted later, he said.
Much of the cash -- $100s, $50s and $20s -- was found jammed in a purse. The unemployed resident had $1,000 in his pants and another $450 on the kitchen counter, Magnuson said.
The small white house on North Garland with a pumpkin on the porch and black cat wandering through the yard was filled with police who used a search warrant to enter. In the fenced-in rear yard, two penned up dogs, one a pit bull, barked when police came near.
Magnuson said Dave Nelson, Animal Charity humane investigator, will remove the dogs so that police can check the cages for cash. Hiding drugs and cash near vicious dogs is standard procedure for drug dealers, Magnuson said.
Youngstown Detective Sgt. Mike Lambert, pointing to steel mesh covering a rear window, explained that drug buyers would park next door and come through a gate to the window, which has a small opening in the mesh. They would plunk down their cash, usually $20 per hit, he said.
The next-door neighbor's house, until this morning, had a surveillance camera trained on the walk-up window at 1203 N. Garland Ave., and the monitor was inside the drug house, Lambert said. Police removed the camera today.
Investigation
Magnuson said today's arrests represent the second tier of the investigation, which began nearly two years ago. The first defendants were indicted in May.
"This was a New York to Youngstown connection -- with the drugs going to the suburbs," Magnuson said. "There's heroin in Canfield, my town."
Lead investigator on the case is FBI Special Agent Jim McCann.
The narcotics trafficking investigation was a combined effort of the New York and Cleveland FBI, which has an office in Boardman, the local task force and the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The investigation began in 2002, based on allegations that Juan Laviena of East Florida Avenue operated a heroin-cocaine distribution organization in the Youngstown area, Magnuson said. Laviena is one of the locals under indictment.
Court orders allowed the interception of calls to seven cellular phones and two pagers, he said. Three of the cell phone lines originated in New York and conversations identified the suppliers as being from the Dominican Republic.
The case is being prosecuted by David P. Folmar Jr., an assistant U.S. attorney in Cleveland.
meade@vindy.com