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MIT cop arrested on drug charges in East Boston
By adamg on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 8:38pm
City, state and federal agents today arrested an MIT police officer after watching him get out of his cruiser and take delivery of a package stuffed with OxyContin and Roxycodone tablets, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.
Joseph D'Amelio, 38, was arrested, while still in uniform, around 6 p.m. at Advanced Automotive on London Street, the DA's office says, adding officials were alerted by FedEx workers who had opened what they thought was a suspicious package. The package contained 340 80-mg Oxycontin tablets and a number of 30-mg Roxycodone tablets, officials say.
Also arrested: Anthony Cristallo, 39, of Derry, NH. In addition to the drugs, officials seized $12,000 in cash.
Both men will be arraigned Monday in East Boston District Court on chages of trafficking in more than 100 grams of OxyContin, which could get them 20 years in prison.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
just curious
What is UPS doing opening packages anyway?
Did they think it was a bomb, a gun? Shouldn't they have called police/state police/TSA/FBI/CIA if they thought they had a "suspicious package"?
(Sounds like there is no chain of evidence here - a sharp lawyer ought to get this thrown out).
What are the criteria for 'suspicious' in the land of UPS workers?
Correction, although it doesn't affect your questions
It was FedEx, not UPS. Fixed in the post.
There are strict protocols
There are strict protocols for opening suspected drug packages (this was a suspect package in the drug sense, not the explosive sense). Security personnel are required to notify immediately the law enforcement agency with jurisdiction.
The personnel in this case adhered to those protocols and did notify State Police, who responded to the facility. State Police in turn notified BPD and the feds, and they executed the controlled delivery and arrest together.
The chain of custody issue -- which you rightly point out is crucial to a successful prosecution -- has been challenged and upheld hundreds (maybe thousands at this point) of times in Massachusetts courts.
Notify after opening the package?
My question should have been clearer. Shouldn't law enforcement (and I don't mean a cop from MIT) be present when the suspicious package is opened to preserve the chain of evidence?
If I were a FedEx employee with an agenda I could certainly plant unlawful things in packages then call the authorities & deliver them to my target.
Why do you think they opened the package?
Woof!
There are a lot of things that make a package "suspicious" to a shipper like UPS and FedEx. One of them is excessive interest from Narc and Explosive sniffing puppies. There are others, including x-ray showing lots of internal packaging and even pills, and how the stuff is packaged, who it came from, etc.
It would be a grand waste of time to open every package - and potentially dangerous to open a suspicious package, too. This package failed some sort of screening procedure and the cops were called to open it up.
In fact, if the dogs found it interesting and then they x-rayed it and were pretty sure about the contents (e.g. the size and shape of pills), they may not have opened it up at all.
I guess I'm the only one
The FedEx workers opened the package, according to the story. Not the cops.
This is my basic problem with the 'protocol'.
Security personnel opened
Security personnel opened the package. I don't know off the top of my head whether FedEx and UPS have their own police force as the USPS does, but the individual who opened this package had the legal authority to do so without disrupting the chain of custody.
100 GRAMS?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=convert+340*8...
Massachusetts General Laws,
Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 94C: Section 32E:
(c) Any person who trafficks in heroin or any salt thereof, morphine or any salt thereof, opium or any derivative thereof by knowingly or intentionally manufacturing, distributing or dispensing or possessing with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense or by bringing into the commonwealth a net weight of fourteen grams or more of heroin or any salt thereof, morphine or any salt thereof, opium or any derivative thereof or a net weight of fourteen grams or more of any mixture containing heroin or any salt thereof, morphine or any salt thereof, opium or any derivative thereof shall, if the net weight of heroin or any salt thereof, morphine or any salt thereof, opium or any derivative thereof or any mixture thereof is [...] one hundred grams or more but less than two hundred grams, be punished by a term of imprisonment in the state prison for not less than ten nor more than twenty years.
It's the "any mixture containing" clause that brings it up to 100 grams.
Remember when
the cops didn't look like perps?