Judge sets conditions for release of troopers
Pair held on drug and extortion charges
By Lee Hammel TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
WORCESTER—
Magistrate Judge Timothy S. Hillman yesterday proposed conditions in U.S.
District Court for the release of a state trooper and a retired trooper charged
in a drug and extortion conspiracy.
Trooper Mark V. Lemieux of Norwood and retired Trooper Joseph M. Catanese of
Sandwich will remain in pretrial detention until arrangements can be made to
meet the terms of release that Judge Hillman set.
The conditions include posting a $200,000 secured bond, third-party guarantees,
electronic monitoring, no contact with witnesses or fellow defendants, and using
only one cell phone and one landline telephone, with the government permitted to
monitor those.
Judge Hillman also barred Trooper Lemieux from continuing to live with a fourth
defendant, Tara I. Drummey, whose relationship with the trooper was
deteriorating prior to their arrest May 16.
In proposing conditions to release Trooper Lemieux and Mr. Catanese, Judge
Hillman made no mention of releasing a third defendant, Patrick McCarthy of
Yarmouth, whom Mr. Catanese allegedly recruited to collect drug debts for
Trooper Lemieux’s drug-dealing informant. Ms. Drummey, who allegedly bought and
sold OxyContin for an informant of Trooper Lemieux, has already been released on
conditions.
Judge Hillman said he realized that releasing Trooper Lemieux and Mr. Catanese
comes over the strenuous objection of Assistant U.S. Attorney William F.
Bloomer, who argued earlier this week that they are too dangerous to be set free
and they should not be treated differently from non-law enforcement defendants.
Mr. Bloomer did not indicate whether he will appeal the release of the two men.
The defendants were not in court yesterday, but Judge Hillman warned their
lawyers that they would quickly be back in court if there was any deviation from
the conditions he will set.
“These guys have one foot in Wyatt (Detention Center) and one foot on a banana
peel, as far as I am concerned,” he said.
On Tuesday, federal defender Timothy G. Watkins argued for bail for Mr.
McCarthy, saying his only crime was “yelling at people” to collect drug debts at
the direction of two people whom he knew to be longtime state troopers.
Mr. McCarthy, whose criminal record includes assault and battery convictions,
introduced himself to Trooper Lemieux’s confidential informant as “Patrick, my
friends call me ‘Pain’ ’cause I’m Pain all the time,” according to an affidavit
by state police Lt. Thomas J. Coffey.
According to a taped conversation with an undercover New Hampshire state trooper
whom Mr. McCarthy was told was a drug dealer who had a drug debt to Trooper
Lemieux’s informant, Mr. McCarthy said, “I’ll cut you … ear to ear and I’ll drop
you out in the … parking lot. I don’t care, OK?”
At one point, on March 23, Trooper Lemieux called his informant — telling the
informant in a recorded conversation that he and Ms. Drummey were in the funeral
procession for her mother, who died from an apparent drug overdose — and asked
whether the informant “would be able to take care of her,” meaning front money
for Ms. Drummey to fly to Florida to buy more OxyContin, according to Lt.
Coffey.
Paul V.
Kelly, Trooper Lemieux’s lawyer, said “snippets” of tape played in
court do not reflect the complexity of the relationship between Trooper Lemieux
and this “drug-dealing sleazeball of a confidential witness.”
May 18,, 2007
The feds: State cops sold drugs
By Maureen Boyle, Enterprise staff writer
For more than four years, State
Trooper Mark V. Lemieux worked as a narcotics investigator for the Bristol
County District Attorney's Office.
Today, prosecutors in that office are reviewing those cases to see if any are
tainted after Lemieux, his former state police partner and two others were
charged Wednesday in federal court with conspiring to deal the powerful
painkiller OxyContin.
“We are reviewing all of the files and cases where he was considered the lead
investigator,” said Gregg Miliote, spokesman for Bristol County District
Attorney C. Samuel Sutter. “Any case where he was the lead investigator on, we
are going to review.”
How many cases that may involve was not immediately known, but prosecutors were
going through files to see what effect, if any, the charges will have on current
or past cases, he said.
Lemieux of Norfolk was asked to leave the state police unit at the district
attorney's office in December after Sutter unseated incumbent Paul Walsh.
“He was not here for this administration,” Miliote said.
Lemieux, his live-in girlfriend, Tara I. Drummey, retired state Trooper Joseph
M. Catanese of Sandwich and Patrick McCarthy, also known as “Pain,” of Yarmouth
face charges in U.S. District Court stemming from a scheme to bring thousands of
dollars worth of OxyContin from Florida to Massachusetts.
Lemieux, Catanese and McCarthy are also charged with conspiring to commit
extortion to collect drug debts.
Catanese had also worked in the
narcotics unit at the Bristol County District Attorney's Office prior to his
retirement in 2004.
The charges follow a six-month investigation by state police and the Department
of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that included
taped conversations detailing plans to get large amounts of OxyContin in Florida
and bring the drugs to the Greater Boston area for distribution, according to an
affidavit filed in U.S. District Court.
“It is a somber moment when it becomes necessary to prosecute a member of law
enforcement who has abused his authority and crossed the line from crime fighter
to criminal,” U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said in a prepared statement.
OxyContin and its chief ingredient oxycodone has been tied locally to at least
16 area deaths between Jan. 1, 2004, and Aug. 31, 2006, according to an
examination by The Enterprise of death certificates filed in 28 local
communities.
OxyContin has also been tied to an
increase in heroin use as abusers turn to the cheaper opiate once the addiction
takes hold. Also, 74 area people have died of opiate-related overdoses,
including heroin, during that same span, the review found.
Mary Deramo, whose daughter got hooked on heroin after using OxyContin, said the
suspects need to spend weeks at drug treatment programs and see desperate
parents bringing in their children to get help for heroin addiction.
“These people should be forced to see what their greed has done,” she said.
Joanne Peterson, founder of the parental support group Learn to Cope, said she
wonders how many young adults got hooked on the OxyContin that was brought to
the state by the suspects.
“How many young people died from those very pills?” she asked. “There is no way
of knowing the damage.”
According to an affidavit by state police Lt. Thomas J. Coffey, the drug
operation was uncovered last November after a man was caught at Logan Airport
with $21,149 in cash and OxyContin pills. The man initially told Coffey he was
an informant for Lemieux, an assertion the state trooper confirmed when called
from the airport barracks at the time.
However, the man later in the investigation told police Lemieux's live-in
girlfriend had made several earlier trips to Florida for him to get OxyContin
from doctors there.
The man, who was not identified, told authorities doing a follow-up
investigation that Lemieux asked him last June if his girlfriend could make the
Florida trips to get the OxyContin because she needed money, according to the
affidavit.
Lemieux would make the arrangements for his girlfriend to fly to Florida and
“check in” to make sure things went smoothly, the affidavit noted.
In February, Lemieux put the informant in touch with his former state police
partner, Catanese, to get help in collecting drug debts, according to the
affidavit.
Lemieux, Catanese, McCarthy and the informant eventually met April 11 at the
Braintree Mall parking lot to discuss collecting the drug debts.
A few days later, the informant and McCarthy met in East Boston to collect what
was said to be an outstanding $9,000 drug debt. But the person “owing” the money
was an undercover state trooper and the informant's vehicle was rigged with
surveillance equipment.
McCarthy, according to the affidavit, demanded the debt be paid and told the
undercover officer not to make excuses.
McCarthy told him if he “wanted a story I can go to the library and, you know,
get a book. It'd be in your best interest to pay it ... I'm sure you got family.
I'm sure you don't need people coming to your house looking for money.”
McCarthy warned the undercover officer what would happen if he didn't pay up,
according to the affidavit. “You want to pick (expletive) splinters out of your
head for the rest of your life? ... You have that money by Friday or you're
going to pick splinters out of your head for the rest of your life.”
Last month, Lemieux tried to distance himself from the drug conspiracy, saying
he was “a little nervous” and asked the informant if anyone connected with his
earlier encounter at Logan Airport had tried to contact him, according to the
affidavit.
May 17, 2007
DA to review arrested state trooper’s drug cases
By Aaron Nicodemus, Standard-Times staff writer
NEW BEDFORD — Bristol County District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter and Massachusetts State Police plan to review 10 to 20 open drug cases to determine if any were compromised by a state trooper arrested Wednesday for his alleged role in an OxyContin ring.
State Trooper Mark V. Lemieux, 49, of Norfolk faces charges in U.S. District Court that he, his ex-partner in the state police, his live-in girlfriend and a hired enforcer ran the ring from June to the present.
He was a member of the Bristol County District Attorney’s Drug Task Force from 2002 until December. He lost his position in New Bedford when he was not offered a position by Mr. Sutter, who had just been elected to office. Since January 2006, Mr. Lemieux had been serving as a state trooper in Boston.
The retired state trooper, Joseph M.
Catanese of Sandwich, was Mr. Lemieux’s partner in the Bristol County Drug Task
Force from 2002 until his retirement in 2004.
“All of the open cases that he was involved in are being individually reviewed,”
said district attorney spokesman Gregg Miliote. “If we think for any reason that
these offenses hinder these cases we inherited, we will take any and all actions
necessary.”
Mr. Miliote said the internal investigation will focus on active cases only, for
now.
“We’ll let the facts of this play out,” he said. “We’ll pay close attention to
what happens with this (case).” He made a point of noting that the officers
worked for Mr. Sutter’s predecessor, Paul F. Walsh Jr.
Mr. Miliote said the internal investigation would not focus on closed cases that involved Mr. Lemieux or Mr. Catanese, unless the investigation into the active cases warranted widening the investigation.
A spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police directed all comment to Mr. Sutter’s office.
The chief public defender for Bristol County, attorney Alan Zwirblis, scheduled a meeting today to discuss the possible ramifications of Mr. Lemieux’s arrest with the public defenders on his staff.
Mr. Zwirblis said the public
defender’s office will comb through all of its cases, searching for any
involvement of Mr. Lemieux.
“We’re going to go through and see if he had popped up any of (the cases),” he
said. “Certainly, we’re going to explore it.”
He said there were any number of ways that a state trooper involved in the drug trade could affect a case.
“What if he were an undercover officer making (drug) buys, or if he pulled an application for a search warrant? That could be pretty serious,” he said. “If there’s anything that really leaps out at anyone, we’re going to explore that.”
According to the federal affidavit
filed on the case, in June Mr. Lemieux approached a drug dealer, someone whom he
had used as a confidential informant in prior drug cases, and asked him to help
his live-in girlfriend earn some money running OxyContin from Florida to
Massachusetts. Mr. Lemieux arranged for Tara Drummey, 39, to fly to Florida and
back several times to obtain OxyContin from doctors and pharmacies in Florida.
According to the affidavit, Ms. Drummey needed the money to pay for her mother’s
funeral expenses. Her mother had died of a drug overdose, according to the
affidavit.
In November, the confidential informant attempted to board a flight to Fort
Lauderdale at Boston’s Logan Airport but was stopped by a security screener, who
found a large quantity of OxyContin and more than $21,000 in cash. The informant
was handed over to a task force led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
that included the Massachusetts State Police. State police contacted Mr. Lemieux,
and informed him that his confidential informant had been arrested.
Unbeknownst to Mr. Lemieux, the confidential informant later agreed to wear a wire and build a case against Mr. Lemieux.
Federal and state authorities recorded dozens of conversations and witnessed several instances where the confidential informant handed money over to Mr. Lemieux for OxyContin that his girlfriend smuggled through Logan Airport. In at least two of these instances, Mr. Lemieux was wearing his state police uniform and driving an unmarked state police cruiser, according to the affidavit.
When the confidential informant told
Mr. Lemieux that he was having trouble collecting drug debts from some of his
dealers, Mr. Lemieux suggested he call his former partner, Mr. Catanese. Mr.
Catanese recommended Patrick “Pain” McCarthy, of Falmouth, and asked to be paid
30 percent of all money collected from the dealers.
The affidavit laid out how other state police officers, including one from New
Hampshire, posed as drug dealers who owed the confidential informant money. In
one audio taped conversation, Mr. McCarthy threatened the undercover New
Hampshire state trooper, saying, “You want to pick splinters out of your head
for the rest of your life?” and “I’ll cut you (expletive) ear to ear.”
The state police officer in charge
of the investigation, Lt. Thomas J. Coffey, also posed as a drug dealer in one
phone conversation.
Mr. Lemieux eventually began to suspect that police knew about the ring, because
he had heard that police knew his girlfriend was selling drugs. He questioned
the confidential informant incessantly, according to the affidavit.
At one point, Mr. Lemieux asked the
confidential informant if he would kill to protect him.
“All I’m saying is, if it came down to it, would you do the guy?” Mr. Lemieux
asked, according to the affidavit. “If you had to cover yourself by doing — or
cover me — by doing that guy, and you’re not in a position to get (expletive)
slaughtered, would you do it?”
Mr. Lemieux and Mr. Catanese appeared in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, along with Ms. Drummey of Norfolk and Mr. McCarthy of Falmouth. All four defendants were ordered held by Judge Timothy S. Hillman, and are in custody of U.S. marshals. The case is continued to May 24 in U.S. District Court.
Contact Aaron Nicodemus at anicodemus@s-t.com
State trooper faces federal OxyContin charges
By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff
A Massachusetts State Police trooper, who spent much of his career targeting drug dealers, and a retired trooper were arrested today on federal charges for allegedly running an OxyContin trafficking ring and for extortion.
Mark Lemieux, of Norfolk, who joined the Metropolitan District Commission police in 1987 and became a trooper when that force was consolidated with the State Police in 1992, was arrested along with former state trooper Joseph Catanese, of Sandwich, and two other people, including Lemieux's girlfriend.
Lemieux had been assigned to the Bristol County Drug Force, which operates out of the district attorney's office in New Bedford. He was credited with being one of three officers who initiated the investigation that led to the federal prosecution in the 1990s of the highly publicized Charlestown "Code of Silence" case, in which witnesses broke their silence to help convict a ring responsible for drug trafficking and murder in that close-knit section of Boston.
Catanese had also worked on that Bristol County task force, but retired from the State Police in 2004.
All the defendants are scheduled to appear today in federal court in Boston. The others arrested were Lemieux's live-in girlfriend, Tara Drummey, and Patrick McCarthy of Yarmouth.
Lemieux is accused of approaching a drug dealer last June and arranging for him to use Drummey as a courier so that she could make some money, according to an affidavit filed in federal court. Drummey allegedly made trips to Florida to get OxyContin from doctors and pharmacists and delivered the pills to the dealer for a fee.
The scheme began to unravel last November after the dealer was stopped by State
Police at a security checkpoint at Logan International Airport. He was ready to
board a flight to Fort Lauderdale carrying a large quantity of OxyContin and
$21,149 cash, according to the affidavit, written by Lieutenant Thomas. J.
Coffey of the Massachusetts State Police.
The dealer, who is now a cooperating witness, had been an informant for Lemieux,
according to the affidavit.
BOSTON -- A state trooper and a retired trooper who worked in a unit that targeted drug dealers were arrested Wednesday on allegations they ran an OxyContin ring.
Trooper Mark Lemieux of Norfolk; former state trooper Joseph Catanese of Sandwich; Lemieux's girlfriend, Tara Drummey, also of Norfolk; and a third man, Patrick McCarthy of Yarmouth, were charged with conspiring to distribute OxyContin. Lemieux, Catanese and McCarthy were also charged with conspiracy to commit extortion on allegations they threatened state troopers posing as drug customers who owed the ring money for OxyContin pills.
Lemieux was a police officer with the Metropolitan District Commission from 1987 until the commission was consolidated with the state police in 1992, when he became a state trooper. Catanese also was an officer with the MDC and later the state police, from 1982 to 2004.
Lemieux and Catanese worked together in state police Narcotics Unit out of the Bristol County District Attorney's Office from June 2002 to December 2004.
Authorities allege that Lemieux called an alleged drug dealer in June and asked him to use Drummey, his live-in girlfriend, as a courier because she needed to make money, according to court documents. Drummey then allegedly began making trips to Florida to obtain OxyContin from doctors and pharmacists, and collected a fee for bringing the pills back to Massachusetts.
Authorities uncovered the ring in November 2006 when security officials at Logan International Airport found a large amount of cash and OxyContin pills in the luggage of the drug dealer, who was about to board a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The dealer became a cooperating witness against Lemieux and the other alleged members of the ring.
It could not be immediately determined Wednesday whether the defendants have obtained lawyers yet.