Heroin dealer, Edwin Laboy, pleads guilty
- By Cadence Mertz -- Free Press Staff Writer -- Saturday, September 28, 2002
A heroin dealer whose drug network extended across Vermont and Massachusetts pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court to conspiring to distribute the opiate and nearly causing a young woman's death. Contact Cadence Mertz at 660-1847 or cmertz@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
Heroin dealer sentenced to 30 years
By Cadence Mertz -- Free Press Staff Writer -- Tuesday, June 03, 2003
A 28-year-old man could spend the next 30 years in federal prison for trading a nearly fatal dose of heroin to a woman for sex and for selling massive quantities of heroin in the Burlington area.
Methadone clinic at capacity
- By Cadence Mertz
Vermont's first methadone clinic to treat opiate addiction has reached capacity within months of its opening, with as many names on the waiting list as there are on the center's patient roster.
Police break up marijuana smoke-in
- By Jill Fahy -- Free Press Staff Writer -- Wednesday, April 21, 2004
A heavy police presence during a marijuana smoke-in Tuesday at the University of Vermont pretty much forced students to get high on the moment instead of the drug they were celebrating.
Police savor pause in heroin arrests
- By Emily Stone -- Free Press Staff Writer -- Sunday, May 11, 2003
Burlington police last made a heroin-related arrest on Jan. 17. Informants have no news about the drug, officers aren't finding bags of the powder on searched suspects, and the number of crimes often associated with the drug has dropped, police said.
Edwin Laboy, 27, also agreed to forfeit up to $450,000 in cash and three vehicles prosecutors said were used to sell drugs or bought with the proceeds.
The plea came after one day of testimony in what was scheduled to be a two-week trial. Prosecutors dismissed two of the four counts against Laboy in return for the plea.
Laboy faces 20 years to life in prison, Judge William K. Sessions III said. The sentencing is scheduled for early January.
Laboy wore a tan suit and spoke quietly as he answered Sessions' questions about the plea agreement.
"I plead guilty," Laboy said as Sessions asked how he responded to the conspiracy and forfeiture counts. His attorney George Nasser of Springfield, Mass., would not comment on the plea after the hearing Friday.
Laboy was charged with five others, some of whom were scheduled to testify during the trial.
Prosecutors said Laboy ran a drug ring that brought tens of thousands of bags of heroin into Vermont over four years. He continued to operate the ring after being arrested in 2001, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tristram Coffin told jurors.
The Massachusetts native with a 10th-grade education was driving luxury cars and pulling in thousands of dollars a week from drug sales, according to the prosecution. Laboy would drive to Springfield several times a week and return with up to 1,000 bags of heroin at a time, according to court documents.
Heroin is available for about $5 a bag -- about one dose -- in Springfield. Laboy could sell that same bag, stamped with a red sun to identify his brand, for about $25 on the streets of Vermont, Coffin said.
"Heroin was a very profitable item for Mr. Laboy," Coffin said during the trial.
Laboy's operation extended from Burlington to St. Johnsbury. He had a network of sellers, mostly small-time dealers who were not reaping the profits as Laboy was, Coffin said.
Amanda Baker tied Laboy to the drug during the sole day of testimony against Laboy. Baker testified Thursday that Laboy gave her heroin twice, once in exchange for sex, on April 23 and 24, 2001. Baker was 18 at the time. The second dose of the drug caused Baker to overdose in room 140 at the University Inn and Suites in South Burlington where she had been staying with Laboy and two other men.
Laboy and his associates dumped the young woman's body in a bathtub and fled, leaving her for dead. A maid found Baker, who was rushed to Fletcher Allen Health Care in critical condition. She later recovered.
Laboy would bring raw, uncut heroin to Vermont, Coffin said in his opening statement of the trial. He would then process and package the drug in small, clear bags with Laboy's trademark red sun stamped on each, Coffin said.
Baker said she saw Laboy and his associates, Jamaal Richards, Neil Badger and Colin Russell, process 700 bags of heroin the night before she overdosed. The bags were processed in Badger's Northeast Kingdom trailer and then put into check boxes for transport to Burlington.
The heroin Laboy was selling was so strong some of his dealers had warned him of its potency, Coffin said. Laboy didn't care, Coffin said.
Laboy has a lengthy criminal history. He was arrested in Burlington in 2000 after smashing his Toyota 4-Runner into a porch in Burlington's Old North End while attempting to elude police. He was arraigned in Massachusetts on Feb. 7, 2001, for possession of heroin.
Laboy was stabbed Aug. 1, 2001, outside a bar on Main Street in Burlington.
Police arrested Laboy on state and federal charges on Sept. 10, 2001. He is being held in the Northwest Regional Correctional Facility in St. Albans.
Edwin Laboy, considered to be one of the largest heroin dealers in Vermont, was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Burlington. He pleaded guilty in September to conspiring to distribute heroin with serious bodily injury resulting.
Monday, Laboy, wearing a tan suit, stood in court and apologized for his crime. He spoke for about 10 minutes, attempting to explain his actions, outlining how he began selling heroin in Burlington, and answering questions from Judge William Sessions III.
Selling drugs brought him money he'd never had before, he said. He didn't come to Vermont as a dealer but fell in with bad people, said Laboy, who grew up in Holyoke, Mass.
Laboy said he has apologized to the woman he and friends left for dead in a South Burlington hotel bathtub. The victim, a recovering heroin addict, chose not to attend the sentencing hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tristram Coffin said.
"I'm sorry for what I've done," Laboy said. "I'm sorry for the pain I've caused to everybody in Vermont."
Laboy faced a minimum of 20 years to life in prison. His attorney, George Nassar of Springfield, Mass., argued that Laboy's troubled upbringing and remorse for the incident merited a lighter sentence.
Sessions disagreed. He said the heroin Laboy brought into Vermont was a "poison" that devastates some of the community's most vulnerable members.
Laboy grew up fatherless and in poverty, cared for by a mentally ill, substance-abusing mother, Nassar said in court. Laboy, who hung his head while his attorney spoke, moved through 60 homes as a child, Nassar said.
He faced life on the streets of a troubled town that spits young men straight into the criminal justice system, Nassar said. Holyoke's neighborhoods were riddled with gangs. Laboy, a high-school dropout, turned to crime not knowing any other way of life, Nassar said.
"Holyoke, I think, is a strong factor in this case," Nassar said. "It stands out as one of the truly horrifying places for young people to grow up."
Laboy said Monday that he came to Vermont to go to a reggae festival and fishing. The Green Mountains were a chance to get away from what he was used to, he said. He went hunting and four-wheeling.
"I liked it. It was quiet," Laboy said in court. "You didn't have to watch your back."
He fell into selling drugs, lured by the money and the crowd he hung around with, he said. He had contacts in Massachusetts who supplied him cocaine and heroin. He began selling drugs in Vermont in at least 1996, according to court papers.
In April 2001, Laboy gave Amanda Baker, who was 18 years old, heroin in exchange for sex, in a room at the University Inn in South Burlington. Baker overdosed, and Laboy and two companions left her turning blue in their hotel room bathroom. Laboy said Monday they put her in the bathtub to try to revive her with cold water.
Laboy said he felt for her heartbeat and knew she was still alive. He and a companion, Jamaal Richards, who is being sentenced in connection with the case, argued over whether to call 911, Laboy said. The men attempted to dial 911 from the hotel room, but could not reach an outside line, he said. Laboy said he believed Richards eventually took care of Baker.
Baker was comatose and near death by the time a hotel maid found her and she was taken to the hospital.
Laboy said Monday that the incident scared him. He stopped selling heroin, but continued selling cocaine, he said.
Laboy might have sold more than 130,000 bags of heroin onto Vermont streets in one two-year period, prosecutors estimated in court papers. One bag of heroin is approximately one dose and can cost about $25 in Vermont.
Laboy eventually returned to selling heroin, even arranging heroin deals from jail after his arrest in September 2001, Coffin said.
Sessions said Laboy is as significant a heroin dealer as he has seen in his time as a judge.
There is no parole in the federal system. Laboy will receive credit for time served and could earn more credit for good behavior.
Contact Cadence Mertz at 660-1847 or cmertz@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com.
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Sunday, May 11, 2003
The 100 slots were filled by March, just five months after the clinic opened its doors. The time frame was about what health care providers had expected. More than 100 names are on the waiting list, said Warren Bickel, director of The Chittenden Center, the treatment program.
The full roster leaves few options for addicts seeking treatment in Vermont, but the state has promised that help is on the way. Two more substance abuse treatment centers are in the works -- one would specifically address opiate addiction, said David Yacovone, director of administrative services for the state Agency of Human Services.
"Obviously, the high number of people in treatment speaks to the nature of the problem we have in Vermont," Bickel said Friday.
Gov. Jim Douglas said he expects an opiate addiction treatment center and an 80-bed inpatient substance abuse treatment facility to open by the end of the year.
The Chittenden Center
The lengthy battle for a medical treatment center addressing heroin and other opiate addictions ended in late October with the opening of The Chittenden Center in Burlington. The clinic opened in stages, seeing more and more patients until it reached capacity.
The clinic dispenses methadone -- a synthetic drug doled out in liquid doses -- to stem cravings for heroin and block the symptoms of withdrawal.
Despite hiccups in the weeks after opening -- like security guards' finding drug paraphernalia outside the clinic -- the treatment center has operated uneventfully from the first floor of the University Health Center on South Prospect Street. The center must follow strict federal guidelines for dispensing methadone and employ tight security. University of Vermont Police Capt. Lianne Tuomey said she knew of no problems at the clinic in recent months.
Urine screening has shown more than 90 percent of the center's clients remain cocaine- and opiate-free at any given time, Bickel said, pleased at the number. There has been some turnover in the 100 patients, but only two or three slots at a time, Bickel said.
Women with children have priority when The Chittenden Center has openings, he said. After that, it's first-come, first-served.
On the horizon
The Agency of Human Services has asked for proposals for two new substance abuse treatment programs. The first, which could be up and running this summer, would likely dispense methadone, but might also offer other types of treatment, Yacovone said.
Opening Vermont's second methadone treatment program should go more smoothly than getting The Chittenden Center up and running, Douglas said. The 100-patient program in Burlington was the state's first, and working out the kinks to get it open was a first-time experience for all involved, he said.
State health officials had said they wanted methadone treatment available in January 2002. Not until 10 months later did the program open. The three organizations that teamed up to run the center -- Howard Center for Human Services, Fletcher Allen Health Care and the University of Vermont -- had much to learn about the federal requirements for dispensing methadone to addicts. Security measures added to the time it took to open the program.
Bidders have returned proposals on the 80-bed treatment center, Yacovone said. The proposals must include plans for 80 beds but the beds don't have to be in one place, he said. A consortium including Rutland Regional Medical Center put forth a plan that would make use of the now-defunct Brandon Training School.
Other options
Bickel said there are other options for addicts in need of treatment now.
The federal Food and Drug Administration in the fall approved the use of buprenorphine as a treatment. Doctors can prescribe the drug -- which Bickel has studied for more than a decade -- to individual patients as an addiction treatment. Bickel said he knows of about half a dozen doctors with the training to offer buprenorphine to their patients as an addiction treatment.
Bickel said he would like The Chittenden Center to include buprenorphine as a treatment. He has run an experimental program using buprenorphine as an opiate addiction treatment at UVM just down the hall from the methadone clinic.
Pregnant women have another option for medical treatment for opiate addiction. Fletcher Allen runs a small high-risk pregnancy program that can prescribe methadone to addicted patients. That program has operated for about two years, dispensing the drug from the hospital pharmacy to about two dozen women.
The methadone clinic attempts to absorb the women into the center's treatment program after they give birth, Bickel said.
For addicts seeking treatment who can't find a doctor to prescribe buprenorphine or are unable to access Fletcher Allen's program for pregnant women, there are few other options, Bickel said.
"They can try and tough it out in programs without medications, but I think that's not a very viable option," he said. "I think we've got the toe in the water and I'm hoping people will realize the water is warming up enough to put the rest of the foot in."
Contact Cadence Mertz at 660-1847 or cmertz@bfp.burlingtonfreepress
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SPECIAL REPORT: Heroin's anguished voices
UVM and Burlington city police made three arrests for possession and use of marijuana and inciting a riot during the gathering of about 600 people, mostly students, at UVM's Redstone Campus Green.
In what has become a traditional April 20 event among students at the university, the so-called 420 ritual began at UVM in the mid-1990s as a protest of marijuana laws. The event isn't unique to UVM, though. It has been observed by other groups in other cities across the nation.
The last major smoke-in at UVM was in 2001, when at least 1,500 people gathered in front of the campus library. Police watched but did not make arrests.
In 2002, under then-interim UVM President Edwin Colodny, the administration and student government association took a more hard-line approach in dealing with the nonsanctioned event.
"We felt it was not safe, not healthy and not what UVM was about," said Annie Stevens, assistant vice president for student campus life.
Stevens said campus police and the administration were anticipating some type of gathering of students Tuesday, but they weren't sure what to expect.
Before the event, UVM Police Chief Gary Margolis said his officers were prepared to deal with anything that came their way.
"Over the last four or five years, the message has been pretty clear, that UVM doesn't condone or support these illegal activities," Margolis said.
At 4:15, five minutes before Tuesday's smoke-in officially began, a shaggy-haired participant summoned the crowd to the center of the green with a trumpet call. By 4:20, hundreds of people had formed a circle around the trumpet player, who was by then accompanied by two more students playing bongos.
About 10 UVM police officers, using video cameras to monitor the proceedings, made their way through the crowd, watching for pot smokers.
The first arrest was made within minutes. Nickolai Sears, a UVM student, was quickly shepherded away from the gathering, flanked by several officers.
"I just told everybody to get together," Sears said, as he was hauled off by UVM police. A lot of smoke wafted through the air during the event, but most of it emanated from tobacco cigarettes. Although the dense crowd helped to physically shield would-be pot smokers from the police, the unique odor gave away a couple of users.
Chants of "smoke weed" were heard rippling though the throng. One student was arrested for yelling for his fellow students to smoke pot.
"What did everyone come here to do?" the student yelled.
"Smoke weed," was the answer from the crowd.
"So why aren't we doing it?" the student called back, just before two UVM officers grabbed and led him away. He was charged with inciting a riot. His name was not available Tuesday. One student held up a poster protesting the police presence during the gathering. It said, "Wasted Resources: Has there been a terrorist threat?"
A number of participants proudly showed their support for the legalization of marijuana by wearing pro-pot T-shirts. One said, "marijuana is an herb, (President) Bush is a dope." Another said, "I love marijuana."
UVM sophomore Dean Southworth wore a shirt that didn't require a slogan. It was green and printed with pot leaves.
"I definitely put it on with today in mind," Southworth said, referring to the 420 ritual that has ebbed and flowed in popularity over the years.
UVM seniors Meghan Fallon and Vanessa Burkman, both of whom smoked marijuana during the pro-pot rally in 2001, said they were disappointed that the university has squashed smoking at the event.
"It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen," said Fallon, remembering the 2001 gathering. "Those days are gone."
Thomas Gustafson, UVM's vice president of student and campus life, called this year's 420 event a "distraction from what most students are interested in."
"This was a representation of about 5 percent of our student population, and an even tinier percentage of that did anything inappropriate," Gustafson said. "It all seems kind of frivolous and silly, but if I were a student, I'd be frustrated with those who got this going. Most students don't want to be paying their tuition dollars toward dealing with things like that."
Leigh Sager, a freshman at UVM and a supporter of legalizing marijuana for medicinal purpose who watched the gathering, said the arrests and general atmosphere of the gathering give serious marijuana advocates a bad name.
"I don't want to be seen as a hippie pot head," Sager said.
Contact Jill Fahy at 660-1898 or jfahy@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
Heroin cases are down in both state and federal courts in Burlington. So, too, are crimes like check forgery. Some drug counselors say they hear heroin is harder to find on the street.
Anecdotes, backed by statistics, point to a noticeable drop in the amount of heroin in the Burlington area. Police, prosecutors and counselors attribute the shift to new treatment options for addicts and increased arrests, particularly of large-scale dealers.
They hope they've made a dent in the heroin problem that gained a solid foothold in Vermont during the past several years, but they all say there is no way to tell whether this is a temporary dip or the beginning of a long-term trend.
"I can't quite figure out if it's actually making a difference, which I hope it is, or if it's that we've taken out the top level and are waiting for that vacuum to be filled," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Anderson. Federal prosecutors generally focus on larger drug cases.
Numbers are down in state court, too, where the lower-level offenders are prosecuted.
"There was a period of time when we were just bombarded," said Chittenden County Deputy State's Attorney Carolyn Hanson, who focuses on drug cases. "That seems to have calmed down for the moment."
Hanson and others said drug cases in general are not decreasing. The number of cocaine cases has increased, but that might be a symptom of police turning their attention back to a broader array of drugs after spending the past couple years focusing on heroin. Drug counselors say they are hearing that cocaine and crack cocaine are easier to find than they used to be.
Drug experts say there is no common pattern for how a drug cycles through a community. Anticipating whether there will be a resurgence of demand for heroin in six months or whether the resources that have been put into ridding the community of heroin will have a lasting effect is not practical.
Those who treat drug addiction caution against assuming that the heroin problem has been solved. Heroin is still available for people willing to look for it, they said.
Drug counselors applaud the effect of the Burlington methadone clinic, which opened in October and is treating 100 addicts who might otherwise be out hustling for a fix. But the clinic already has a long waiting list of people who are not receiving treatment. The more people who go without treatment, the more the demand for the drug will increase, counselors said.
"It's a positive sign and it shows that something can be done about heroin use," said Tom Dalton, coordinator of the Burlington needle exchange and the other treatment services within the Howard Center for Human Services. "I think that it's only going to be a temporary situation unless we can keep up with the demand for treatment spots."
Enforcement
Burlington Detective Cpl. James Brigham had to call his partner to figure out when their last big heroin investigation was. It was long enough ago that he couldn't remember. They decided it had been about six months.
Burlington police have had no heroin arrests in nearly three months, the longest period without an arrest since at least 1999, according to department records.
"I'd be naive to say that it's gone, but it's no longer a major focus," Brigham said. Instead, he said, officers are making more cocaine and crack cocaine arrests. Arrests for OxyContin, a prescription pill that has heroin-like effects, remain steady.
Brigham pointed to two causes for the decrease in heroin. A number of high-level dealers were arrested and convicted in federal court in the past year. Also, the methadone clinic has helped quell demand for the drug, he said.
Data from the Chittenden County State's Attorney's Office point to a decrease in heroin cases and cases of related crimes, like forgery and retail theft.
In the three months between mid-August and mid-November 2002 there were 16 heroin-sale-and-possession cases and 41 related cases. The following three months there were 22 heroin cases and 49 related cases. In the most recent three months, there were nine heroin cases and 17 related cases. The most recent numbers are two weeks shy of a full three-month period.
Hanson, like others who have noticed the trend, is hesitant to draw conclusions from the numbers.
"It's really difficult to say what this means," she said.
Overdose numbers are down, too. According to records from the Department of Health, there were eight heroin-related deaths between January and July 2002. There were no heroin deaths between July 11 and the end of the year. Statewide numbers for 2003 were not available Friday.
Chittenden County State's Attorney Robert Simpson said there were no heroin deaths in the county after the July 11 death until March, when a user died in Huntington. The long, overdose-free period is encouraging, he said.
Treatment
Area drug treatment professionals have heard differing reports about the availability of heroin.
"I've heard from a number of offenders that heroin is pretty easy to get ahold of," said Bob Wolford, who spends part of his week as a drug case manager in Vermont District Court in Burlington.
"The impression that I'm getting from talking to people is that heroin is still available but that it's less common," Dalton said. "They have to seek it out more to find it."
Dalton and others hail the arrival of the methadone clinic and the federal government's decision in the fall to allow doctors to prescribe to addicts buprenorphine, an alternate treatment.
The methadone clinic is serving 100 addicts, with a success rate of more than 90 percent in keeping them clean of cocaine and opiates, clinic director Warren Bickel said.
This means there are fewer people in the community with an active addiction, which in turn means these people don't have heroin to sell to friends and will not be introducing the drug to others, Dalton said. This will have a noticeable effect on the community.
"It will probably have a long-term echo," he said. To have a long-term, profound effect, the state needs to make treatment available to more people, he said. Burlington's methadone clinic is the only one of its kind in the state, although other institutions have expressed interest in operating similar outlets.
Future
There is no cookie-cutter pattern of what happens to a drug within a community when law enforcement and treatment resources are focused on that particular substance, experts said.
David Musto, a professor at Yale University who has studied the history of drugs in America, said the effect of focused eradication efforts varies from community to community.
New York City, for example, has always had a heroin problem despite ebbs and flows over the years. Part of the problem in bigger cities is that there are places for the drug community to hide.
One of the most important factors in keeping a drug from resurging is to coordinate efforts by law enforcement and treatment agencies.
"Acting quickly and comprehensively, you're able to severely reduce the spread of heroin in a community," Musto said. "If you've had a big drop in it, I think you can be quite happy."
Contact Emily Stone at 660-1898 or estone@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
If you found this story of interest, check out Burlington Free Press'
SPECIAL REPORT: Heroin's anguished voices
