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Bluelighter
Top narcotics officers join N.Y. war vs. craigslist drug ads
PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSY
Daily News (NY)
11.25.08
Prosecutors across the nation will join a city effort to get craigslist to curb blatant ads for illegal drugs on its online trading post, the Daily News has learned.
Special narcotics prosecutor Bridget Brennan recently sent a letter to craigslist urging it to work with her investigators to weed out ads hawking drugs.
Undercovers in her office have arrested dozens of people in the last four years for selling cocaine, Ecstasy and other drugs.
She asked Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, a vice president of the National District Attorneys Association, to present her idea to the group.
"NDAA President Joseph Cassilly will inform craigslist's CEO that the nation's prosecutors expect his cooperation in removing surreptitious advertising of the sale of illegal drugs," Hynes said.
In addition, the San Francisco district attorney will contact craigslist, which is based there, to get the company's cooperation to eliminate drug activity ads.
Brennan welcomed their involvement.
"I think the support of the prosecutors will help," she said.
Craigslist hasn't responded to her letter, sent 10 days ago, she said. The company also has not responded to numerous requests for comment from The News.
Meanwhile, dealing on craigslist is still going strong: An undercover from Brennan's office arrested Jairo Aguirre in a midtown Starbucks on Thursday on charges of selling 6 grams of cocaine.
"The slopes still have snow," Aguirre, 35, wrote in the ad. "It's very warm in the lodge."
Bankers, lawyers, students, and parolees nabbed selling on craigslist use the same code for cocaine.
One of Brennan's first cases, Ivy Leaguer Ray Wang, illustrates the full spectrum of the problem.
He was not your typical drug dealer. He graduated from Princeton in 2003, excelling in economics and German literature. He briefly attended a premed program and was working in a high-end IT job in Manhattan.
Convicted of selling drugs in September, he was sentenced to a year in jail. Now, he sits in a Rikers Island cell, worlds away from his life of culture and promise.
In October 2006, he answered an undercover investigator's ad in the personals on craigslist for "ski tickets."
Wang, 27, e-mailed back: "Hey are you still looking for snow? I can supply," court papers say. The sale was made soon after in an East Side Starbucks.
"He was undergoing personal and financial hardships, and was in the tragic depths of an addiction to cocaine," said his lawyer, Frederick Sosinsky. "For the first time in his life, he acted in a completely irrational manner."
Link!
PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSY
Daily News (NY)
11.25.08
Prosecutors across the nation will join a city effort to get craigslist to curb blatant ads for illegal drugs on its online trading post, the Daily News has learned.
Special narcotics prosecutor Bridget Brennan recently sent a letter to craigslist urging it to work with her investigators to weed out ads hawking drugs.
Undercovers in her office have arrested dozens of people in the last four years for selling cocaine, Ecstasy and other drugs.
She asked Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, a vice president of the National District Attorneys Association, to present her idea to the group.
"NDAA President Joseph Cassilly will inform craigslist's CEO that the nation's prosecutors expect his cooperation in removing surreptitious advertising of the sale of illegal drugs," Hynes said.
In addition, the San Francisco district attorney will contact craigslist, which is based there, to get the company's cooperation to eliminate drug activity ads.
Brennan welcomed their involvement.
"I think the support of the prosecutors will help," she said.
Craigslist hasn't responded to her letter, sent 10 days ago, she said. The company also has not responded to numerous requests for comment from The News.
Meanwhile, dealing on craigslist is still going strong: An undercover from Brennan's office arrested Jairo Aguirre in a midtown Starbucks on Thursday on charges of selling 6 grams of cocaine.
"The slopes still have snow," Aguirre, 35, wrote in the ad. "It's very warm in the lodge."
Bankers, lawyers, students, and parolees nabbed selling on craigslist use the same code for cocaine.
One of Brennan's first cases, Ivy Leaguer Ray Wang, illustrates the full spectrum of the problem.
He was not your typical drug dealer. He graduated from Princeton in 2003, excelling in economics and German literature. He briefly attended a premed program and was working in a high-end IT job in Manhattan.
Convicted of selling drugs in September, he was sentenced to a year in jail. Now, he sits in a Rikers Island cell, worlds away from his life of culture and promise.
In October 2006, he answered an undercover investigator's ad in the personals on craigslist for "ski tickets."
Wang, 27, e-mailed back: "Hey are you still looking for snow? I can supply," court papers say. The sale was made soon after in an East Side Starbucks.
"He was undergoing personal and financial hardships, and was in the tragic depths of an addiction to cocaine," said his lawyer, Frederick Sosinsky. "For the first time in his life, he acted in a completely irrational manner."
Link!
