DRUG PROLIFERATION IN UPSTATE NEW YORK AND DRUG COURTS — PART V - HOW NEW YORK'S PRO-SQUATTER LAWS AND COVID-19 EVICTION RESTRICTIONS CREATED OPPORTUNITIES FOR GOVERNMENTAL APPROPRIATION AND DESTRUCTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY

 

I. NEW YORK'S STATUTORY TRAP: AN INVITATION TO ENTER CAN BECOME AN EXCUSE TO SEIZE A HOUSE

In April 2024, New York enacted legislation supposedly protecting property owners from squatters.

The Legislature amended Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law (RPAPL) § 711 to declare:

"A tenant shall not include a squatter."

That sounds like protection for property owners.

But examine the actual definition the Legislature adopted:

"A squatter is a person who enters onto or intrudes upon real property without the permission of the person entitled to possession, and continues to occupy the property without title, right or permission of the owner or owner's agent or a person entitled to possession."

The definition requires unauthorized entry as well as unauthorized continued occupation.

What happens when the initial entry was authorized, but the subsequent occupation was not?

That is the statutory defect challenged in Neroni v. Delaware County, Index No. EF2025-447, Amended Verified Complaint, Section VIII, paragraphs 371–388.

The complaint identifies an extraordinary range of individuals who may initially enter private property with permission:

• Delivery people and mail carriers.

• Contractors hired to perform repairs.

• Social visitors and temporary guests.

• Municipal property inspectors.

• Other persons admitted for a limited purpose.

None of these individuals necessarily possesses any right to reside in the property.

Yet the definition in RPAPL § 711 makes the circumstances of initial entry central to determining whether someone is a squatter.

A person admitted to repair a leaking pipe is not thereby authorized to move into the house.  A municipal inspector admitted to examine a building is not thereby authorized to occupy it.

Nevertheless, the literal wording of § 711 creates an opening for a person who initially entered with permission to argue that the statutory definition of squatter does not apply.

Paragraph 384 of the Amended Verified Complaint identifies precisely this problem, describing the legislation as:

"extraordinarily overbroad, makes no exceptions as to the reasons for invitation of people by landlords onto the property in order for them to be deemed tenants"

The complaint argues that the statute thereby encourages opportunistic claims of possession by individuals who were admitted for entirely different purposes.

The Legislature purported to protect owners against squatters while creating uncertainty concerning people who initially entered lawfully and subsequently refused to leave.

RPAPL § 713: The Legislature Refers Owners to Another Statute Without Resolving the Problem

The second defect appears in the very next sentence of RPAPL § 711.

The statute provides:

"In the event of a conflict between the provisions regarding squatters of this section and the provisions of subdivision three of section seven hundred thirteen of this article, the provisions of section seven hundred thirteen of this article shall be controlling."

What does the controlling statute actually say?

RPAPL § 713(3) authorizes a special proceeding where a person squatted upon property without permission and continued occupying it without permission, or where permission was revoked and notice of revocation was given.

This provision expressly addresses revocation of permission.

But the cross-reference does not expressly answer another question: whether the special proceeding is the exclusive lawful means of removing every non-tenant whose permission has been revoked.

Paragraph 375 of the Amended Verified Complaint identifies that omission:

"RPAPL 713 does not indicate whether evictions through courts constitute an exclusive remedy for removal of non-tenants."

That is not an academic concern.

New York's legal system recognizes distinctions between tenants, licensees, invitees, and trespassers.

The Legislature has provided judicial procedures for recovering possession in specified circumstances.

But the existence of an available judicial remedy raises the question whether it eliminates every otherwise lawful method of removing a trespasser.

The complaint challenges the failure to define that boundary clearly, especially when the owner's conduct may subsequently be characterized as a criminal unlawful eviction.

RPAPL § 768: Criminal Punishment for Owners Who Guess Wrong

The third statute supplies the enforcement mechanism.

RPAPL § 768 protects specified occupants who have lawfully occupied a dwelling for thirty consecutive days or entered into a lease.

It prohibits specified methods of removing those occupants without lawful authority.

The prohibited conduct includes force, threats, interference with essential services, removal of possessions, and changing locks to prevent lawful occupancy.

Violations can constitute a class A misdemeanor.

The statute also authorizes civil penalties of $1,000 to $10,000 per violation, with additional daily penalties in specified circumstances involving failure to restore occupancy.

Thus, the statutory scheme creates a serious asymmetry.

An occupant can claim that the original entry was authorized.

The owner can maintain that permission was limited and subsequently revoked.

Police may decline to determine the occupant's legal status.

And the owner contemplating removal must evaluate the possibility of criminal prosecution and substantial financial penalties.

The government has made the consequences of an incorrect classification severe while leaving important boundaries of the classification open to dispute.

The Attorney General's own published enforcement guidance illustrates the significance of the initial-entry question.

It instructs police to determine whether the occupant lawfully entered and whether the occupant has a lease or has occupied the dwelling for more than thirty days.

It expressly includes certain licensees among persons protected after thirty days of lawful occupancy.

The result is a framework in which the original circumstances of entry, the duration of occupancy, the withdrawal of permission, and the existence of possessory rights may all become contested questions.

For an owner confronting an unauthorized occupant, those distinctions determine whether immediate removal is lawful or exposes the owner to criminal and civil prosecution.

The Missing Common-Law Right of Ouster

The Amended Verified Complaint raises a further constitutional issue.

Paragraphs 376 and 380 invoke the common-law right of ouster of trespassers.

Paragraph 376 asserts that this right predates the New York Constitution and is preserved by Article I, § 14.

That constitutional provision preserves the common law as part of New York law, subject to lawful alteration.

The complaint contends that the Legislature's creation of special eviction proceedings did not necessarily abolish the existing common-law right to remove trespassers without judicial process.

Paragraph 383 challenges the combined operation of RPAPL §§ 711, 713, and 768 as vague, overbroad, and susceptible to arbitrary enforcement, including interference with that claimed constitutional protection.

The question is specific:

Where has the Legislature clearly abolished the common-law right of ouster of non-tenants, and where has it established that RPAPL § 713 is the exclusive remedy in every disputed-occupancy situation?

If those questions are unresolved, the consequences are borne by the owner.

Good Cause Eviction: Even the Number of Residential Units Becomes a Disputed Question

The 2024 Good Cause Eviction Law, Real Property Law Article 6-A, introduces additional restrictions on recovering possession of covered residential accommodations.

Real Property Law § 211 defines a small landlord by reference to ownership of no more than ten units statewide, subject to applicable local provisions.

But the Amended Verified Complaint, paragraphs 394–396, identifies an important omission.

What constitutes a "unit" when a building is classified as residential for taxation purposes but cannot lawfully be occupied?

Is a unit a building?

An apartment?

A separately rentable room?

Does an uninhabitable house count?

Does a house undergoing reconstruction count?

What about a building vacated pursuant to a municipal code-enforcement order but still listed as residential on the tax rolls?

The complaint identifies four such buildings in Delaware County.

These distinctions affect whether an owner qualifies for the small-landlord exemption and whether statutory restrictions govern termination or nonrenewal of existing tenancies.

The classification of uninhabitable buildings as residential property can therefore have consequences beyond taxation.

A building may be too damaged to house anyone, yet its classification may still affect the owner's obligations under housing legislation.

The statute supplies a numerical threshold but does not expressly resolve every question concerning the treatment of uninhabitable buildings.

That creates another opportunity for disputed interpretation and enforcement.

Why Elderly, Disabled, Retired, and Out-of-State Owners Bear a Disproportionate Burden

Paragraph 399 of the Amended Verified Complaint directly identifies the consequences:

"GCEL has a disparate impact upon elderly and disabled absentee property owners and landlords"

It further alleges that the State and local governments can use the legislation to resolve their housing problems at property owners' expense.

The mechanism is concrete.

An out-of-state owner depends on local officials to investigate unauthorized occupation.

An elderly or disabled owner may be unable to travel, inspect damage, supervise repairs, or attend repeated proceedings.

A retired owner may have limited resources for prolonged litigation.

Meanwhile, the owner remains responsible for taxes, maintenance, insurance, and code compliance.

An occupant who refuses to leave may remain while the owner pursues judicial remedies.

The government may avoid providing alternative housing.

And the property may continue deteriorating.

The owner bears the financial consequences of statutory uncertainty while the government controls the practical machinery of enforcement and benefits from its non-enforcement by utilizing the owner's vulnerability created by the statutory schemes to use the house for the unhoused individuals - including just-released convicted heroin dealers.

If a local agency has an independent interest in keeping the occupant at the property, the opportunity for selective enforcement becomes particularly serious.

That interest might be avoiding public housing expenditures.

It might be maintaining access to an individual cooperating with narcotics investigators.

It might involve preserving a location useful for surveillance or controlled drug transactions.

The challenged statutes make such de facto seizure and exploitation of out of state owners' private property for public use - including for drug enforcement or rather drug trafficking use - possible.

The Central Constitutional and Financial Question

The interaction of RPAPL §§ 711, 713, and 768 and Real Property Law Article 6-A raises questions concerning due process, property rights, and the potential for uncompensated governmental seizures of private property.

An owner may retain title while losing effective control over possession, without effective means of regaining it before the property is completely destroyed by drugs.

Remediation of a drug-contaminated property may be costly, dangerous and may exceed in cost the former value of the property at its prime - while local municipalities continue (as they actually do in the case described) to tax the property as if it is still economically viable, in full knowledge that it is not - a stop occupancy order is on the door in this case.

An occupant may remain while legal classifications are disputed.

The government may obtain the benefit of continued housing of its CI drug dealers without assuming ownership expenses.

And the owner may ultimately bear the cost of a destroyed building.

The central question is whether New York's occupancy laws permit public agencies to shift housing and other governmental costs onto private owners through vague pro-squatter statutes, restrictions on possession, selective enforcement, and the threat of criminal prosecution.

That question becomes especially important when the occupant is a convicted drug offender useful - and likely used - by law enforcement for a supposedly public purpose.

It is the question raised by the controversy surrounding James Laughman and 201 Main Street in Delaware County.

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Documentary authorities: RPAPL §§ 711, 713(3), 768; Real Property Law §§ 211, 213–216, 231-c; N.Y. Const. art. I, §§ 6, 14; New York State Office of the Attorney General, Unlawful Evictions (RPAPL § 768): Guidance for Law Enforcement; Neroni v. Delaware County, Index No. EF2025-447 (Sup. Ct., Delaware County), Amended Verified Complaint, NYSCEF Doc. 143, Sections VIII–IX, ¶¶ 371–400; Memorandum in Opposition to Motion #8, NYSCEF Doc. 202, Section VII, pp. 21–23.

DRUG PROLIFERATION IN UPSTATE NEW YORK AND DRUG COURTS — PART IV MORE OVERDOSE DEATHS, MORE GOVERNMENT MONEY: WHAT NEW YORK'S OWN SENATE INVESTIGATIONS REVEAL

 

I. THE WORSE THE HEROIN EPIDEMIC BECAME, THE MORE MONEY THE GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATED TO FIGHT IT

What happens when the government receives more money to combat a problem as that problem grows worse?

And what happens when the same government finances narcotics enforcement, recruits drug offenders as confidential informants, diverts certain heroin dealers from prison, provides public assistance to offenders, and then requests additional funding because heroin distribution and overdose deaths remain a crisis?

Does the government have a financial incentive to eliminate the problem — or to administer an increasingly expensive problem indefinitely?

Three New York State Senate investigations, conducted between 2014 and 2018, raise that question.

The documentary evidence is unusually revealing because it comes from the government itself.

The New York State Senate's 2014 report, Solutions to New York's Heroin Epidemic, documented an escalating heroin crisis throughout upstate New York, including Delaware, Otsego, and Chenango Counties.

At the February 23, 2016, Senate hearing at SUNY Oneonta, prosecutors, sheriffs, treatment providers, and public officials described the operation of Drug Courts, the use of cooperating offenders, the dangers of heroin distribution, fatal overdoses, and the shortage of housing for addicted offenders.

Then, on October 23, 2018, the Senate Majority Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction issued another report, describing its accomplishments, recommendations, and increasing public expenditures.

Read together, these documents reveal an extraordinary financial trajectory.

New York's opioid-response funding increased from $168 million in fiscal year 2015–2016 to $247 million in fiscal year 2018–2019.

That was an increase of $79 million — or 47%.

Meanwhile, the Senate's 2018 report documented that opioid-related deaths in New York had more than doubled, from 1,030 in 2009 to 2,158 in 2015, that was BEFORE the dramatic funding increase started.

Measure	Earlier figure	Later figure	Increase
Opioid-related deaths	1,030 (2009)	2,158 (2015)	+109.5%
Heroin-related deaths	638 (2013)	1,041 (2015)	+63.2%
State opioid-response funding	$168M (FY 2015–16)	$247M (FY 2018–19)	+47.0%

Huh?

New York opioid-related deaths increased 109.5% between 2009 and 2015. Heroin-related deaths increased 63.2% between 2013 and 2015. State opioid-response funding subsequently increased 47.0%, from $168 million in FY 2015–2016 to $247 million in FY 2018–2019.

These figures come from the New York State Senate's own 2018 report.

Let's overlay the increase in heroin deaths, specifically.

The question: What measurable results did taxpayers receive for the additional $79 million in annual appropriations?  More OD deaths - and those are only the ones reported?

All of those people gloriously reporting their accomplishments, were DEALING in people's DEATHS, deliberately putting drug dealers into the streets, exposing them - and their customers, to increased risk of fatal overdoses IN THE HOPE - substantiated, apparently - of MORE FUNDING of their law enforcement endeavors? To build their careers and businesses, big and small, OFF THOSE DEATHS?

The number of heroin-related deaths increased from 638 in 2013 to 1,041 in 2015 — an increase of 63%.

These are the Senate's own figures.

The periods are not identical, and the reports do not establish that increased funding caused additional deaths.

They establish something equally important for public accountability.

The government was expanding its financial commitment to combating an epidemic that its own mortality statistics showed had grown dramatically worse.

And the Senate presented the expansion of public spending as an accomplishment.

Sources: New York State Senate Majority Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, 2018 Report & Recommendations, pp. 1, 4, 15.

II. FROM $168 MILLION TO $247 MILLION: THE GROWTH OF THE GOVERNMENT'S OPIOID-RESPONSE INDUSTRY

The 2018 Senate report contains a chart titled "Record Funding Growth to Combat Heroin."

The figures are:

Fiscal year	State funding
2015–2016	$168 million
2016–2017	$174 million
2017–2018	$210 million
2018–2019	$247 million

The total increase over three fiscal years was $79 million.

The Senate characterized this as a 47% increase in funding.

But what did taxpayers receive in exchange?

How many heroin dealers stopped distributing drugs?

How many addicted offenders completed treatment and remained free of criminal activity?

How many overdose deaths were prevented?

How many confidential informants died from overdoses while maintaining contact with drug-distribution networks?

How many private homes were damaged or contaminated by offenders whom the government chose to keep in the community?

How much of the money went to actual medical treatment?

How much went to administrative expenses, salaries, court operations, law enforcement, consultants, contractors, and organizations receiving public grants?

The 2018 report described funding increases, legislative initiatives, and new programs.

It did not provide a comprehensive accounting connecting those expenditures to reductions in heroin distribution, repeat offending, or overdose mortality.

Spending more money is not proof of solving a problem.

It is proof of spending more money.

And when the existence and severity of a public crisis justify increasing appropriations, an obvious institutional incentive arises.

Government agencies and publicly financed organizations can seek larger budgets, more employees, expanded facilities, and additional grants as the crisis worsens.

The same agencies may face little direct financial consequence when the underlying problem persists.

This does not establish that officials deliberately caused overdose deaths to obtain funding.

It raises a legitimate question about the incentives created by a system that finances institutional expansion in response to worsening outcomes.

Who measures success, and what happens to an agency's funding when its policies fail?

III. THE SENATE'S OWN REPORT DOCUMENTED THAT THE GOVERNMENT WAS FINANCING MULTIPLE SIDES OF THE SAME CRISIS

The financial structure extended well beyond Drug Courts.

The 2018 Senate report identified new appropriations for several initiatives, including:

• $3.75 million for jail-based substance-use-disorder treatment.

• $1 million for the Children and Recovering Mothers program.

• $350,000 for Infant Recovery Centers.

• $500,000 for an emergency-room Opioid Alternative Project.

• $1.5 million for an independent Substance Use Disorder and Mental Health Ombudsman.

These appropriations addressed different consequences of the opioid epidemic.

Some funded treatment.

Some funded specialized services for infants and mothers.

Some financed administrative and institutional responses.

Meanwhile, the government continued paying for narcotics investigations, prosecution, incarceration, diversion, public assistance, emergency housing, and child-protection interventions.

At the February 23, 2016, Senate hearing, Delaware County Undersheriff Craig DuMond estimated that nine out of ten people arrested in the drug investigations he described, if not more, were receiving public assistance.

That estimate included drug dealers and addicts committing lesser offenses.

The government was therefore providing financial assistance to a substantial portion of the population simultaneously being investigated for drug-related criminal activity.

The 2014 Senate report also recorded proposals to provide law enforcement with funding for confidential informants.

Franklin County District Attorney Derek Champagne expressly advocated such funding.

The government's expenditure categories thus included support for people with addiction, law enforcement seeking to prosecute drug distribution, and proposals to compensate people who provided information about drug dealers.

The same heroin epidemic generated expenditures across multiple public institutions, each with its own budget, personnel, contractors, and claims of public necessity.

But where was the consolidated financial accounting?

How much was spent per offender?

How much was spent per successful treatment outcome?

How much was spent per criminal prosecution?

What happened to cooperating offenders afterward?

And what was the total financial burden imposed on victims and private property owners?

The public deserves to know whether the expanding system produced measurable improvements proportionate to its cost.

IV. THE CRITICAL QUESTION: ARE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES REWARDED FOR THE CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF THE CRISIS?

The relationship between worsening conditions and expanding public funding creates a structural problem.

A successful intervention should eventually reduce the number of people requiring emergency services, treatment, repeated prosecution, and other publicly financed responses.

But agencies may receive additional resources when they demonstrate that the need for those services is increasing.

That creates a potential conflict between institutional financial interests and long-term public outcomes.

The government can justify additional appropriations by citing more overdoses, more addicted individuals, more children requiring specialized services, and more communities affected by heroin distribution.

The 2018 Senate report did precisely what public-budget advocacy ordinarily does: it identified the severity of the problem, described legislative accomplishments, and advocated continued funding and expansion.

But the missing question is whether the government's own policies contributed to the persistence of the conditions used to justify that expansion.

Consider the testimony of Chenango County District Attorney Joseph A. McBride.

At the February 23, 2016, hearing, McBride described diverting certain heroin dealers into Drug Court because they sold heroin to support their own addictions.

He expressly identified avoiding county jail and state prison as benefits of that policy.

What happened to those dealers afterward?

Were they still distributing heroin?

Were they receiving public assistance?

Were they being used as confidential informants?

Were they placed in safe housing?

Did they relapse?

Did they overdose?

Did they expose other residents to criminal activity?

Without those answers, the government cannot establish the complete financial or public-safety consequences of its diversion policies.

The public is being asked to finance a system without receiving a complete accounting of what the system actually produces.

And the people who bear its costs are not limited to taxpayers.

They include addicted offenders, overdose victims, neighboring residents, and private property owners.

V. THE MISSING VICTIMS: HOW MANY PRIVATE HOMES WERE DESTROYED WHILE GOVERNMENT FINANCED THE HEROIN EPIDEMIC?

There is a remarkable omission from New York State's extensive investigations into the heroin epidemic.

The 2014 Senate Task Force report expressly recognized drug-related crime and the destructive consequences of heroin addiction for local communities.

The 2018 report acknowledged the devastation inflicted upon families, neighborhoods, and entire communities.

The government counted overdose deaths, drug arrests, treatment needs, addicted newborns, emergency medical expenditures, and the growing cost of addiction services.

It celebrated increased public appropriations — from $168 million to $247 million annually.

But where is the accounting of privately owned homes destroyed, damaged, contaminated, or rendered uninhabitable by the drug offenders whom the government kept in the community?

How many houses were occupied by convicted heroin dealers who had been diverted from incarceration?

How many were occupied by offenders cooperating with narcotics investigators?

How many were used for drug distribution, controlled purchases, surveillance, or confidential-informant operations?

How many property owners were deprived of possession while police characterized unauthorized occupants as tenants and directed the owners to pursue eviction proceedings?

How many buildings suffered extensive damage before local code-enforcement officials intervened?

And how many owners received compensation?

These losses do not appear as a separately accounted category in the Senate reports.

Yet the criminal record of the Jose Rodriguez heroin-distribution organization demonstrates that private residences were used in the drug trade.

Cooperating prosecution witness Mark Rathburn testified that Rodriguez directed him to rent an apartment and maintain it as a heroin stash house. Rodriguez provided money for rent and paid Rathburn an additional $400 to $500 weekly.

Police subsequently recovered 250 bags of heroin from the apartment.

That arrangement was documented in the criminal proceedings and summarized in Rodriguez v. Griffin, No. 9:16-CV-1037, 2018 WL 6446199 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2018).

Private residential property was an operational asset in a heroin-distribution network.

The subsequent controversy concerning James Laughman at 201 Main Street in Delhi raises an even more troubling question: what happens when a convicted heroin dealer occupies property without the owners' consent, and the owners allege that law enforcement permits the occupation because the offender is useful as a confidential informant?

Laughman was a twice-convicted felon who admitted selling heroin to support his own addiction.

He occupied 201 Main Street without the owners' permission.

The owners reported threats, lack of essential utilities, unsanitary conditions, unauthorized occupants, drug activity, and serious safety hazards.

Police and Village officials were aware of complaints concerning the premises.

Yet the Village of Delhi issued its stop-occupancy order only after Laughman's death on October 24, 2024.

By then, the owners alleged, the property had sustained extensive physical damage and contamination involving drugs, needles, human and animal waste, and other hazardous materials.

According to a sworn affirmation, Village Police Chief Michael Mills subsequently warned a neighboring resident about fentanyl, needles, and drug paraphernalia inside the building and offered Narcan in connection with a possible cleanup.

The owners state that they received no written notice identifying those hazards.

The government had the authority to address the uninhabitable conditions while Laughman was alive. It exercised that authority after he was dead.

The owners allege that the delay was connected to Laughman's usefulness in confidential-informant operations.

That allegation is part of their pending inverse-condemnation litigation against local governmental defendants.

And it raises an important financial question.

If law enforcement obtained investigative benefits from maintaining an offender's presence at a privately owned property, why should the owners bear the resulting damage, loss of possession, and remediation expenses?

Consider the financial arrangement.

The government may avoid incarceration costs.

It may obtain information from cooperating offenders.

It may receive federal and state funding for narcotics enforcement, treatment, and diversion.

Its agencies may obtain additional appropriations as the epidemic worsens.

Meanwhile, a private property owner may lose a building.

The government counts its expenditures as the cost of fighting heroin. Where does it count the private property it allegedly sacrificed in the process?

The Senate's reports provide no identified statewide accounting of those losses.

There is no figure for the number of homes occupied by diverted drug offenders.

No identified accounting of properties damaged during confidential-informant operations.

No calculation of losses suffered by owners who were unable to obtain timely police or code-enforcement intervention.

No statewide measure of uncompensated private property damage attributable to the government's decisions concerning the continued liberty, housing, or investigative use of drug offenders.

Without those figures, the government's financial presentation is incomplete.

A dollar saved on incarceration may become thousands of dollars in damage to somebody else's property.

A successful narcotics investigation may generate evidence for prosecution while leaving a private residence damaged or contaminated.

An offender's continued liberty may benefit one agency's budget while imposing costs on another agency, neighboring residents, and property owners.

Those costs do not disappear merely because they are excluded from the government's financial reports.

And this brings us to the fundamental question:

How many more 201 Main Streets are there in upstate New York?

How many property owners have been forced to finance, through the destruction of their own property, the government's policies concerning heroin dealers, Drug Court diversion, and confidential informants?

Until those losses are identified and counted, New York cannot present a complete accounting of the financial consequences of its heroin policies.

The public is entitled to know not only how much the government spent fighting the heroin epidemic, but how much damage was inflicted upon private citizens while that publicly financed system operated.

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Documentary Sources and Authorities

1. New York State Joint Senate Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, Solutions to New York's Heroin Epidemic (2014), including Southern Tier regional findings, testimony summaries, and recommendations of law-enforcement officials, prosecutors, and treatment providers.

2. New York State Joint Senate Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, Roundtable Discussion to Examine the Issues Facing Communities in the Wake of Increased Heroin and Opioid Abuse, SUNY Oneonta, February 23, 2016, particularly the testimony of Chenango County District Attorney Joseph A. McBride, Delaware County Undersheriff Craig DuMond, and Otsego County District Attorney John Muehl.

3. New York State Senate Majority Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, 2018 Report & Recommendations (October 23, 2018), pp. 1, 4, 11, 15, documenting opioid-related mortality, public funding increases, and jail-based substance-use-disorder treatment.

4. People v. Rodriguez, 121 A.D.3d 1435 (3d Dep't 2014).

5. Rodriguez v. Griffin, No. 9:16-CV-1037, 2018 WL 6446199 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2018), summarizing the criminal trial testimony concerning heroin distribution, residential stash houses, cooperating witnesses, and confidential informants.

6. People v. Laughman, Chenango County Indictment/Superior Court No. 2014-78; Delaware County Indictment No. 2017-025, County Court Case No. 2017-321.

7. Neroni v. Delaware County, Index No. EF2025-447 (Sup. Ct., Delaware County), Amended Verified Complaint and related exhibits concerning James Laughman, 201 Main Street, alleged governmental use of confidential informants, property destruction, and inverse condemnation.

8. Village of Delhi Police Department records concerning James Laughman and 201 Main Street, including incident reports, photographs, code-enforcement records, and materials produced in response to FOIL requests.

DRUG PROLIFERATION IN UPSTATE NEW YORK AND DRUG COURTS — PART III HOW GOVERNMENT USES HEROIN DEALERS AS CONFIDENTIAL INFORMANTS — AT THE EXPENSE OF THE INFORMANTS, THEIR CUSTOMERS, AND THE PUBLIC

 I. The Government Recruits Drug Dealers to Investigate Other Drug Dealers

One of the most troubling features of narcotics enforcement is the government's dependence on individuals who are themselves involved in drug distribution.

Police and prosecutors recruit drug offenders as confidential informants, obtain their cooperation in exchange for favorable consideration in criminal proceedings, and use their access to drug-distribution networks to investigate other offenders.

The arrangement presents an obvious conflict of incentives.

An incarcerated heroin dealer cannot continue circulating through the local drug market as an active confidential informant.

An offender who remains in the community may be able to identify suppliers, arrange controlled purchases, introduce undercover investigators, deliver drugs under police supervision, and testify against other dealers.

The government benefits from the offender's access to the criminal network.

But what happens to the offender?

And what happens to the community in which that offender continues operating?

The February 23, 2016, New York State Senate hearing on heroin and opioid addiction provides an unusually revealing account of these practices.

At that hearing, Chenango County District Attorney Joseph A. McBride, now a New York State Supreme Court Justice, described efforts to keep heroin sellers who financed their own addictions out of county jail and state prison through Drug Court.

Otsego County District Attorney John Muehl described investigations in which lower-level heroin dealers became cooperating witnesses against major traffickers.

The same hearing included testimony concerning increased risk of fatal overdoses following release from incarceration and actual fatal overdoses following release from incarceration, as well as inadequate housing, and the dangers of returning heroin-dependent individuals to their former drug environments.

The government knew the dangers. It also knew the investigative value of keeping certain offenders connected to the heroin market.

II. The Government's Confidential Informants Face Increased Risks of Relapse and Fatal Overdose

There is a particularly disturbing aspect of recruiting heroin-dependent offenders as confidential informants.

The government may use their addiction-related criminal contacts to obtain evidence while exposing them to the very circumstances that increase their risk of relapse and death.

At the February 23, 2016, Senate hearing, District Attorney McBride described heroin-dependent offenders who died from overdoses shortly after release from incarceration.

He explained that individuals who had abstained from heroin during confinement could lose their previous tolerance and overdose upon resuming drug use, sometimes within 24 hours.

Registered nurse Kelly Liner, representing Friends of Recovery of Delaware and Otsego Counties, also described the heightened overdose danger following periods of abstinence.

The medical mechanism is well established.

Repeated opioid exposure produces tolerance.  When an individual stops using opioids, tolerance declines.  A dose previously tolerated may subsequently cause fatal respiratory depression.

Now consider what happens when such an individual becomes a confidential informant.

Recovery ordinarily requires reducing exposure to the drug market and the circumstances associated with continued drug use.  That would be incarceration that would allow the addict to clean up.

But - that would be expensive for the government and will exclude such drug addict/dealer from the network where the government could otherwise exploit his addiction.

So, expedience wins.  Every time.  Over the life of the addicts and over the safety of the community that the government claims it "serves".

They prefer to plunge the addict/dealer right back into maintaining relationships with suppliers, purchasers, and distributors, and risk a quick OD death.  Which happens often.  Not that the government cares.  The government reports success in getting the bigger fishes, corpses of OD'd CI's that paved that road to success, and untold damage to public safety of the communities where such drug proliferation is encouraged by the government - are not important.

The resulting conflict is fundamental.

Investigators obtain intelligence.

Prosecutors obtain evidence and testimony.

The government may obtain convictions and avoid some incarceration expenses.

The informant remains exposed to heroin, criminal associates, and opportunities for relapse.

The risks can be particularly serious when cooperation is connected to favorable treatment in pending criminal proceedings.

How freely can an addicted offender decline further investigative assignments when the outcome of a criminal case may depend on cooperation?

Who evaluates the informant's medical condition?

Who supervises the risk of relapse?

Who provides treatment?

Who monitors overdose risk?

How many informants relapse during their cooperation?

How many die?

And how many deaths of cooperating offenders are investigated to determine whether their law-enforcement assignments contributed to the circumstances leading to death?

The Senate testimony establishes that officials knew about fatal overdose risks following abstinence and release.  The additional risk attributable specifically to confidential-informant assignments requires investigation.

A government that counts the prosecutions obtained through addicted informants should also account for the consequences experienced by those informants.

III. The Jose “Flip” Rodriguez Heroin Empire: A Case Study in Government Recruitment of Drug Dealers

The February 23, 2016, Senate testimony supplies a concrete example.

Otsego County District Attorney John Muehl described the prosecution of Jose A. Rodriguez, known as “Flip,” who operated a heroin-distribution network supplying Oneonta and surrounding communities.

According to Muehl, Rodriguez controlled more than 90% of Otsego County's heroin market.

Rodriguez directed distribution from New York City through a network of local dealers, couriers, and addicted individuals who transported heroin, delivered money, and supplied customers.

Muehl had prosecuted Rodriguez previously, in 2005.

After receiving a prison sentence of two and one-half years, Rodriguez entered shock incarceration, was released, and subsequently rebuilt his heroin-distribution operation.  Again.

Investigators spent three to four years developing the later case, working through lower-level participants and obtaining cooperation against Rodriguez.

The resulting prosecution produced a 40-year prison sentence.  Nobody reported how many CIs OD'd on the road to that success.  Nobody knows.  Those who know - do not care.  They got their reports and their rewards - including their judgeships for "being tough on crime".  Like Justice Joseph A. McBride.

IV. Rebecca Kennedy: Up to 100 Bags of Heroin Sold Daily

Rebecca Kennedy was one of the government's cooperating witnesses.

According to the trial testimony summarized in Rodriguez v. Griffin, Kennedy began purchasing heroin from Rodriguez's associates in 2007 and began working for Rodriguez in 2009.

She traveled to New York City to deliver money and obtain heroin for distribution.

On individual trips, she transported between $2,000 and $5,000 and collected 20 to 30 bundles of heroin.

She estimated making 40 to 50 such trips.

Kennedy testified that she personally sold 80 to 100 bags of heroin daily in Oneonta.  Nobody knows how many deaths and family destruction and community violence she caused.

At $20 per bag, that represented $1,600 to $2,000 in daily gross sales at the stated prices.

She had between 20 and 30 regular customers.

Several individuals who purchased heroin through the operation subsequently participated in the investigation as confidential informants.

In Rodriguez v. Griffin, No. 9:16-CV-1037 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2018), the federal court expressly identifies:

• Chancy Couse — confidential informant who conducted a monitored heroin purchase on September 2, 2009.

• Mark Clark — identified as a confidential informant and involved in communications preceding that purchase.

• Justin Gage — confidential informant who conducted a monitored heroin purchase on January 21, 2010.

Kennedy herself became a cooperating prosecution witness.

The government obtained testimony from an individual who had participated extensively in distributing heroin to local residents.

How many customers were exposed to potentially fatal heroin during Kennedy's participation in the operation?

How many overdosed?

How many became addicted?

And what happened to Kennedy and the other cooperating participants after the prosecution?

The trial record establishes the scale of the distribution and subsequent cooperation. A complete public accounting would require their criminal dispositions, supervision records, and subsequent outcomes.

V. Jessica Gaston: Heroin as Payment for Drug Distribution

Another cooperating witness, Jessica Gaston, described transporting heroin from New York City to Oneonta.

She estimated making 30 to 40 trips, generally transporting 10 to 20 bundles per trip.

She also transmitted money to Rodriguez and arranged transactions between customers and distributors.

Gaston received heroin as compensation.

This is particularly important.

The trafficking organization used addiction as a means of obtaining labor and distribution services.

The same individual could be a heroin consumer, a courier, a distributor, and ultimately a cooperating government witness.

On May 5, 2010, confidential informant John Francis arranged a purchase through Gaston.

A dealer delivered heroin to Gaston's residence, where Francis subsequently purchased two bags for $40.

The transaction illustrates the use of a private residence as a location for heroin distribution and a controlled purchase involving law enforcement.

The government obtained evidence through individuals already embedded in the drug trade.

But what safeguards protected those individuals from continued drug exposure?

And what protections existed for people living in or near the residences used for these transactions?

VI. Mark Rathburn: A Private Apartment Becomes a Heroin Stash House

The testimony in criminal proceedings concerning Mark Rathburn is especially relevant to the destruction of 201 Main Street in Delhi by convicted drug dealer/potential CI Laughman (the government is mum on the CI status) and his supposed OD death in October of 2024 

Rodriguez v. Griffin, No. 9:16-CV-1037 (DNH), 2018 WL 6446199 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2018), at pages 9–10, under Section II.D, The People's Case.

The federal court cites the original state criminal trial transcript:

Subject	Trial transcript pages
Rathburn's involvement with Rodriguez	T. 904–918
Working for heroin	T. 907–910
Renting the apartment	T. 910–913
Rent payments and $400–$500 weekly compensation	T. 910–913
Arrest with 56 bags of heroin	T. 913–916
Search recovering another 250 bags	T. 956–957

Rathburn initially purchased heroin through Rodriguez's organization.

He subsequently offered to work for Rodriguez in exchange for drugs.

Rodriguez directed him to transport people, deliver money, and participate in distribution.

Rathburn testified that he made about a dozen transfers involving between $8,000 and $10,000 each.

Then Rodriguez instructed him to rent an apartment.

The apartment became a heroin stash house.

Rodriguez supplied money for the rent and compensated Rathburn an additional $400 to $500 per week for maintaining the apartment in his name.

When Rathburn was arrested, police recovered 56 bags of heroin from him.

A subsequent search of the apartment produced another 250 bags.

A residential apartment had become an operational component of a heroin-trafficking organization.

The criminal record identifies the heroin, the money, the residential premises, and Rathburn's subsequent cooperation.

It does not establish that the apartment was occupied without the owner's consent.

But it demonstrates how traffickers use ordinary residential property to conduct criminal operations.

The same type of property can also become useful to investigators conducting controlled purchases, surveillance, and confidential-informant operations.

Who bears the consequences when such activity damages or contaminates a residence?

Who compensates the owner?

Who pays for remediation?

And what happens when an owner objects to continued occupation or drug activity?

These questions become particularly important in the later Laughman controversy.

VII. Jordan Krone: Hundreds of Bags Every Other Day

Jordan Krone, another cooperating witness, described extending Rodriguez's heroin distribution into Albany.

Jordan Krone testified at Jose A. Rodriguez's criminal jury trial in Otsego County Court, as a cooperating prosecution witness.

His testimony is summarized in Rodriguez v. Griffin, No. 9:16-CV-1037, 2018 WL 6446199 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2018), Section II.D, “The People's Case,” pages 10–11.

The federal court cites the original state trial transcript as follows:

Subject of Krone's testimony	Trial transcript
Expanding Rodriguez's heroin operation into Albany	T. 1151–1153
Selling 300–400 bags of heroin every other day	T. 1155
Traveling to New York City to replenish supplies	T. 1155–1156
Making 30–50 supply trips	T. 1155
Delivering over $100,000 in profits to Rodriguez over six months	T. 1161–1162
Moving to Oneonta to take over heroin sales	T. 1159–1160, 1165–1167
Rebuttal testimony identifying Bobby Colone	T. 1250

At the height of his participation, Krone estimated selling 300 to 400 bags of heroin every other day.

He repeatedly traveled to New York City to replenish supplies and delivered proceeds to Rodriguez.

He estimated delivering more than $100,000 in profit over six months.

Krone was eventually arrested after moving to Oneonta to assume a larger role in the operation.

He subsequently testified for the prosecution.

His testimony again demonstrates the scale of heroin distribution carried out by individuals operating below the principal trafficker.

The distinction between a major trafficker and a lower-level addicted distributor does not eliminate the danger posed by the drugs sold by the latter.

Hundreds of bags remain hundreds of opportunities for heroin to reach users, regardless of the distributor's position within the organization.

VIII. Criminal Cooperation in Exchange for Favorable Treatment

The federal court's account of the Rodriguez trial identifies multiple confidential informants and cooperating witnesses.

It also documents that several participants cooperated in exchange for favorable consideration in their own pending criminal proceedings.

That is a critical feature of the system.

The government can obtain evidence against a major trafficker by offering criminal defendants incentives to cooperate.

But cooperation raises questions concerning what happens to the cooperating offenders afterward.

How many receive reduced sentences?

How many avoid incarceration?

How many remain in the community?

How many return to heroin use or distribution?

How many are subsequently arrested?

And how many suffer fatal overdoses?

The Rodriguez prosecution produced a major conviction. That is a documented result.

The longer-term outcomes for the cooperating participants require a separate accounting.

Counting the conviction of the principal trafficker does not measure the full consequences of the investigative arrangements used to obtain it.

IX. From Rodriguez to Laughman: The Unanswered Questions About Government Protection of Drug Dealers

The Rodriguez prosecution establishes that upstate New York law-enforcement agencies used confidential informants and cooperating dealers to investigate heroin-distribution networks.

The Senate testimony establishes that prosecutors favored diversion for certain heroin sellers who financed their addictions.

It also establishes that officials recognized the dangers of relapse, fatal overdose, and inadequate housing.

Those facts provide the institutional context for examining the case of James F. Laughman.

Laughman was a twice-convicted felon who admitted selling heroin to support his own addiction.

His criminal history included proceedings initiated by Chenango County District Attorney Joseph A. McBride, who later became a Supreme Court Justice, riding on "tough on crime" trail - including putting Laughman out into the street to sell more heroin and steal and destroy more properties and wreak more violence.

Laughman subsequently occupied privately owned property at 201 Main Street in the Village of Delhi.

Laughman was very obviously a confidential informant - judging by his drug convictions, his under-sentencing, under-prosectution apparent form his criminal file, which recently became available to me and that I published here - as well as because of blatant police protection rendered him by local village of Delhi and Delaware County police. 

Laughman - allegedly, according to police reports of the Village of Delhi of questionable authenticity - died at the property on October 24, 2024.

The allegations concerning his confidential-informant status remain the subject of pending litigation and demands for governmental records.

A witness submitted an affidavit that Delhi Village Police Chief Michael Mills solicited her on October 24, 2025 to accept NARCAN from him to prevent a fatal overdose if she ventures inside 201 Main Street.

The questions are unavoidable.

Was Laughman cooperating with narcotics investigators?

If so, what consideration did he receive?

Did his cooperation affect decisions concerning his continued liberty, supervision, or occupancy of 201 Main Street?

Was he exposed to increased risks of relapse or overdose through continued contact with drug-distribution networks?

What medical safeguards existed?

Who supervised him?

And why did law-enforcement and code-enforcement officials permit his continued occupation of a building that was eventually declared unfit for occupancy?

The Rodriguez case demonstrates how addicted heroin dealers could become valuable sources of evidence for prosecutors.

The Laughman controversy raises the question whether that investigative value influenced governmental decisions affecting a particular offender and privately owned property.

The public is entitled to know not only how many convictions confidential informants helped obtain, but how many informants died, how many continued committing crimes, and how many innocent people suffered the consequences of keeping those offenders in the community.

The government's accounting cannot end with successful prosecutions.

It must include the human and financial costs of the methods used to obtain them.

X. From Prosecuting Heroin Dealers to Sanctioning Their Victims: Justice/DA Joe McBride's Undisclosed Role in the Laughman Controversy

The controversy surrounding James Laughman has another extraordinary dimension.

The same Joseph A. McBride who publicly explained New York's policy to New York State Senate in 2016 - of keeping certain heroin dealers out of prison - had personally prosecuted Laughman and subsequently, without disclosure of his involvement as DA, presided as a Supreme Court Justice over litigation in which Laughman's criminal activities and the government's alleged protection of him were material issues.

Yet, recently obtained criminal records of Laughman establish the following sequence.

As Chenango County District Attorney, McBride prosecuted Laughman under Indictment/Superior Court No. 2014-78, resulting in Laughman's February 13, 2015, conviction of Grand Larceny in the Third Degree, a class D felony, followed by probation.

On February 23, 2016, McBride testified before the New York State Senate about his office's policy concerning heroin dealers who sold drugs to support their own addictions, including the use of Drug Court to keep such offenders out of county jail and state prison.

In 2017, Laughman was indicted in Delaware County for four felony drug sales, including heroin.

McBride's office initiated proceedings to revoke Laughman's Chenango County probation based on those new offenses.

On July 3, 2017, Laughman admitted in Delaware County Court that he sold heroin in the Village of Walton to support his addiction.

His words were:

"I was just selling it to support my own habit, sir."

Laughman was sentenced to four years in state prison, followed by two years of post-release supervision. His Chenango County probation was revoked, and he received a concurrent prison sentence.

McBride therefore possessed firsthand prosecutorial knowledge of Laughman's criminal history and the proceedings governing his supervision and incarceration.

Years later, Laughman occupied 201 Main Street in Delhi, a privately owned building that suffered extensive damage and alleged drug contamination during his occupation.

The owners brought litigation against Delaware County and other governmental defendants, alleging that law-enforcement agencies had used Laughman as a confidential informant and effectively appropriated their property for drug-surveillance and sting operations without consent or compensation.

Their claims included inverse condemnation.

Laughman's status as a convicted heroin dealer was a material fact supporting the property owners' allegations concerning the nature of his activities and the government's possible reasons for protecting his continued presence.

His alleged confidential-informant status was an additional factual issue requiring investigation and disclosure of governmental records.

McBride, by then a Supreme Court Justice, subsequently presided over proceedings involving the property owners' litigation and imposed sanctions and anti-filing injunctions arising from their pursuit of claims concerning governmental misconduct.

He did so without disclosing his personal prosecutorial involvement with Laughman.

The Judicial Ethics Disclosure Requirement

The New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics addressed the obligations of former prosecutors in Opinion 25-20, dated March 27, 2025.

The opinion requires disclosure when a former prosecutor's earlier criminal proceedings have substantial connections that are material and relevant to a case subsequently coming before that person as a judge.

The disclosure must identify the connection and the nature and extent of the judge's prior prosecutorial involvement.

McBride's involvement was substantial.

He had prosecuted Laughman, obtained his felony conviction and probationary disposition, and initiated proceedings arising from Laughman's subsequent criminal offenses.

He had also publicly testified about policies governing precisely the category of heroin dealer to which Laughman admitted belonging.

McBride was therefore not an uninformed judicial observer encountering speculative allegations about an unknown individual.

He had personal knowledge of Laughman's criminal proceedings and publicly documented knowledge of the relevant prosecutorial policies.

That history was material to the property owners' claims and to the question whether McBride could properly adjudicate litigation concerning governmental conduct connected to Laughman.

It also made McBride a potential material witness concerning Laughman's criminal supervision, prosecutorial treatment, and any governmental arrangements of which McBride had personal knowledge.

Whether McBride possessed additional knowledge concerning Laughman's alleged confidential-informant activities remains a subject for discovery.

Sanctions Against the Property Owners

The most troubling aspect is what happened after the property owners sought judicial relief.

The owners alleged that local governmental agencies had protected a convicted heroin dealer, permitted his continued occupation of their property, and exposed the premises and surrounding residents to serious risks.

They sought compensation and other relief for the alleged governmental taking and resulting destruction.

McBride subsequently imposed sanctions and anti-filing restrictions connected with their litigation, without disclosing his own participation in Laughman's criminal proceedings.

How could a former prosecutor adjudicate the supposed frivolousness of litigation concerning a convicted heroin dealer whom he had personally prosecuted, without disclosing that prosecutorial relationship?

How could the property owners meaningfully evaluate his qualification to preside when they had not been informed of his firsthand involvement?

And why were sanctions imposed upon litigants seeking to investigate the government's alleged protection of Laughman when the judge himself possessed material information concerning Laughman's criminal history?

The documentary record establishes Laughman's drug conviction, McBride's earlier prosecutorial participation, and McBride's public statements concerning heroin-dealer diversion policies.

The allegations concerning confidential-informant operations remain to be investigated.

But the former prosecutor's duty to disclose material connections to proceedings before him is an independent judicial-ethics issue.

The government prosecuted Laughman for criminal conduct. Years later, property owners sought to hold government officials accountable for the consequences of his activities. The former prosecutor, now sitting as a judge, sanctioned their litigation without disclosing his own involvement in Laughman's criminal history.

That sequence raises serious questions about judicial disqualification, due process, and the integrity of proceedings concerning governmental accountability.

It also demonstrates why the Laughman controversy cannot be dismissed as an ordinary dispute between a landlord and an unauthorized occupant.

The case concerns allegations that public officials used and protected a convicted heroin dealer for governmental purposes, permitted the destruction of private property, and subsequently resisted judicial examination of the resulting claims.

The public is entitled to know what McBride knew, when he knew it, why he did not disclose his prosecutorial involvement, why he presided over proceedings in which that involvement was materially relevant, and whether he prejudged with sanctions a meritorious inverse condemnation claim - still unadjudicated - as part of the same police of the Heroin Drug Force that he may REMAIN part of, even after being elected as judge.

Documentary Sources and Authorities

1. New York State Joint Senate Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, Public Hearing, SUNY Oneonta, February 23, 2016, particularly the testimony of Joseph A. McBride, John Muehl, and Kelly Liner.

2. People v. Rodriguez, 121 A.D.3d 1435 (3d Dep't 2014).

3. Rodriguez v. Griffin, No. 9:16-CV-1037, 2018 WL 6446199 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2018).

4. People v. Laughman, Chenango County Indictment/Superior Court No. 2014-78, resulting in the February 13, 2015, felony conviction and subsequent probation-violation proceedings initiated by District Attorney Joseph A. McBride.

5. People v. Laughman, Delaware County Indictment No. 2017-025, County Court Case No. 2017-321, guilty plea and sentencing proceedings of July 3, 2017.

6. New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, Opinion 25-20 (March 27, 2025).

7. Neroni v. Delaware County, Index No. EF2025-447 (Sup. Ct., Delaware County), Amended Verified Complaint and related exhibits.

8. Neroni v. Watershed Agricultural Council, Index No. EF2026-106 (Sup. Ct., Delaware County), orders, sanctions proceedings, and related filings.

9. Neroni v. Baker, Index No. EF2026-112 (Sup. Ct., Delaware County), orders, sanctions proceedings, and related filings.

DRUG PROLIFERATION IN UPSTATE NEW YORK AND DRUG COURTS — PART II How Government Saves Money by Keeping Heroin Dealers Out of Prison — and Who Pays the Price

 

THE GOVERNMENT'S OWN ADMISSIONS: KEEP THE HEROIN DEALERS OUT OF PRISON, SAVE TAXPAYER MONEY, AND SEND THEM BACK INTO THE COMMUNITY

On February 23, 2016, a group of New York State senators assembled at SUNY Oneonta for a public hearing of the Joint Senate Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction.

The testimony given that day deserves renewed attention.

Among the witnesses were Chenango County District Attorney Joseph A. McBride, who subsequently became a New York State Supreme Court Justice, and then-Delaware County Undersheriff Craig DuMond, then chairman of the Delaware County Drug Task Force, who subsequently became - at least he claims that without the required constitutional and statutory undertaking - Delaware County Sheriff.

The witnesses described a heroin epidemic, drug trafficking, fatal overdoses, public assistance, inadequate housing, and government programs intended to keep certain drug offenders out of prison.

Their testimony raises a fundamental question:

Was the government fighting heroin distribution, or financing a system that allowed heroin dealers to remain in business at the expense of local residents?

A. Chenango County District Attorney Joe McBride: Keeping heroin dealers out of jail and prison is government policy

At pages 73–74 of the Senate transcript, McBride explained how his office distinguished between outside heroin traffickers and local heroin dealers who sold drugs to finance their own addictions.

For the latter category, he described a policy of directing offenders into "Drug Court".

McBride stated:

"We try to get the people into drug court."

He then identified an important consequence:

"It keeps them out of our county jail for a year.  It keeps them out of state prison."

Consider the financial implications.

County jails are expensive.  State prisons are expensive.  Correctional officers, buildings, utilities, food, transportation, medical services, and administration all cost taxpayers money.

Keeping a convicted heroin dealer out of jail or prison can produce substantial savings in correctional expenditures.

But what happens to the dealer?

He does not disappear.

He returns to the community.

And if he continues selling heroin, the resulting costs are imposed on the community: additional drug distribution, overdoses, thefts, burglaries, police calls, emergency medical treatment, property damage, and exposure of other residents to criminal activity.

The government saves the cost of incarceration.  The public bears the consequences of the offender's continued presence, continued heroin dealing and continued violence or risk of violence necessarily associated with such an activity.

That is the economic question McBride's testimony raises.

And there is an even more disturbing aspect.

McBride's classification was based on the dealer's motive for selling heroin.

An outsider selling heroin for pure profit was treated as a trafficker deserving incarceration.

A local addict selling heroin to finance his own consumption could be treated as a benign candidate for diversion and release back into the community, to save the county and the state money for incarceration - and to deal again.

But what difference does the seller's motive make to the customer who overdoses?

Does heroin become less lethal when sold by a person who intends to spend the proceeds on more heroin?

Does the danger to a neighborhood diminish because the dealer is himself addicted?

A heroin dealer who sells drugs to support his own habit is still distributing heroin.  His customers can still die.

The government knew this.  McBride knew it.  And contributed to drug proliferation anyway.  

B. The Senate heard about hundreds of bags of heroin and young overdose victims

At the same hearing, Senator Terrence Murphy described a recent drug seizure involving a 20-year-old woman.

Authorities recovered 562 bags of heroin and $30,000 in cash.

The seizure occurred in Murphy's district.  The testimony did not establish that this particular dealer was selling to support her addiction.

But it demonstrated the volume of heroin that could be circulating through a relatively young dealer's operation.

Murphy also described attending the wake of a 26-year-old man who had died from an overdose.

The juxtaposition is significant.

The senators were hearing about substantial quantities of heroin and young people dying from its consumption.

Meanwhile, prosecutors were describing programs intended to keep certain heroin sellers out of incarceration.

How many bags of heroin were sold by offenders diverted into Drug Court? How many customers overdosed? How many died?

Where are the statistics?

C. McBride acknowledged fatal overdoses following release

McBride also testified about the danger to heroin-dependent individuals returning to the community after incarceration.

He described people who had lost their tolerance during confinement and overdosed after resuming heroin use, sometimes within 24 hours of release.

Other witnesses, including registered nurse Kelly Liner of Friends of Recovery of Delaware and Otsego Counties, addressed the heightened fatal overdose danger following periods of abstinence.

Thus, the government knew that releasing heroin-dependent offenders into environments where heroin remained available could have fatal consequences.

And the government also knew that appropriate housing was unavailable for many of them.

Noel Clinton-Feik, co-owner of Crossroads Inn, testified about inadequate supervised housing, emergency shelter placements, and recovering individuals encountering drug dealers at those placements.

She reported that Delaware County was spending $1 million annually on emergency sheltering.

The problem was plain.

The government sought to keep certain heroin sellers out of prison, obviuosly for double financial benefit - they saved money for incarceration and medical care, and they could be useful as CIs for new drug stings - in full knowledge that they would lack, on release, adequate housing to separate them from the drug trade.  In fact, they were very possibly encouraged by the government and plunged right back into drug trade as useful CIs, exposing them and the community to dangers.

Otherwise - where, exactly, were these heroin dealers supposed to go?

Who would house them?

Who would supervise them?

Who would protect their neighbors?

And who would pay when they resumed criminal activity?

D. Delaware County Undersheriff Craig DuMond: At least 90% of drug arrestees were on public assistance

Then-Undersheriff Craig DuMond supplied another remarkable financial fact.

At pages 80–81 of the transcript, he estimated that nine out of ten people arrested in drug-related investigations, if not more, were receiving public assistance.

His estimate included addicts committing lesser offenses and drug dealers.

That means that, according to the chairman of Delaware County's own Drug Task Force, at least 90% of the people being arrested in the drug investigations he described were receiving taxpayer-funded public assistance.

The government was therefore paying public benefits to many of the individuals it was simultaneously investigating and prosecuting.

The government also financed the police departments, prosecutors, courts, treatment services, and correctional institutions involved in their cases.

And, as DuMond acknowledged, the heroin epidemic contributed to increased foster-care placements, generating still more public expenditure.  Delaware County has just announced recruitment of more foster parents - did they release too many drug dealers to help proliferate drugs and deprive kids of their parents?

Consider the circularity.

Taxpayers finance public assistance.

Taxpayers finance narcotics investigations.

Taxpayers finance prosecution.

Taxpayers finance diversion and treatment.

Taxpayers finance emergency housing.

Taxpayers finance child-protection interventions and foster care.

And when drug activity destroys privately owned property, the owners may be left to finance the cleanup and restoration themselves.

How much public money was spent on this system, and how much heroin distribution did it actually eliminate?

DuMond's estimate does not establish that every recipient used public assistance to finance drug trafficking. It does establish that a senior Delaware County law-enforcement official recognized substantial overlap between the public-assistance population and people arrested in drug investigations.

The economic implications warrant investigation.

---

Source: New York State Joint Senate Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, public hearing at SUNY Oneonta, February 23, 2016; testimony of Joseph A. McBride, Craig DuMond, John Muehl, Noel Clinton-Feik, Kelly Liner, and Senator Terrence Murphy. Laughman criminal proceedings: Chenango County Indictment/Superior Court No. 2014-78; Delaware County Indictment No. 2017-025, County Court Case No. 2017-321, plea proceedings of July 3, 2017.