Drug courts advertise themselves as a humane alternative to incarceration. Their stated purpose is to rehabilitate people suffering from addiction, prevent recidivism, and protect the community.
But there is another side to drug enforcement that deserves public scrutiny - the exploitation by local law enforcement of drug addicts/ drug offenders as confidential informants, to their detriment (fatal at times), to the community's safety detriment, to private property detriment.
A convicted drug dealer can be valuable to law enforcement precisely because he remains connected to the criminal world. He knows the dealers, the suppliers, the customers, and the places where drugs are distributed. Keeping him on the street preserves those connections.
The question is what happens when the government's interest in obtaining information conflicts with its obligation to protect the public and rehabilitate the offender.
The case of James Laughman, a convicted heroin dealer who died on October 24, 2024, inside our property at 201 Main Street in Delhi, New York - which authorities and the RRRRevolutionary local press kept under wraps - illustrates the consequences of that conflict.
The criminal history the public was not supposed to examine
We obtained 133 pages of criminal court records concerning Laughman. The County fought hard, for 2 years, not to disclose it. It disclosed the records only after it first surreptitiously obtained sanctions against us - before adjudication of our inverse condemnation case, mind, through a prejudgment by a person who, as it turns out, was at the same time a prosecutor on the Laughman's case and then a judge trying to quash our pursuit of reimbursement or property damage caused by his use as a CI - possibly, with that DA's (Joseph A. McBride) help.
You can read these records here.
You can read the transcript of the audio interview given by Delaware County DA Simth of the audio file I downloaded from Smith's Facebook page, that, read together with Laughman's records and the records we submitted in Neroni v Mole, EF2024-880, and Neroni v Delaware County, EF2025-447, listing just what we know before discovery about Laughman's role in destruction of our property at 201 Main Street, Delhi, NY, reads like a eulogy to the County's Confidential Information (CI) who perished in the line of duty.
This is our complaint in Neroni v Mole.
This is the affidavit of our daughter featuring what Laughman was doing at our property at 201 Main Street, Delhi, NY, including threats of violence against her.
Our daughter suffered dire consequences for seeking police protection against the CI Laughman and going public about what happened at 201 Main Street, including police's refusal to help her and supporting the violent drug dealer instead.
After she submitted this affidavit with exhibits - she was fired from County-entwined non-profit Watershed Agricultural Council, her position was then split into two, exported to Delaware County, and the County refused to hire her into either of the now two positions despite her confirmed qualifications.
The County then grandstood lamenting that they cannot find "talent" for the County Attorney's office (my daughter is a licensed attorney living within a walking distance of the County building at 111 Main Street, Delhi, NY - but no-no, she is my daughter, not eligible for hiring). The County further grandstood claiming in public that there is a scarcity of environmental engineers (my daughter holds an MA in environmental engineering from SUNY Buffalo, and has been a CREP/CSBI Planner for Watershed - a successful one - for over 6 years, before they cut her position after she provided an affidavit for us in court). She is also fully trilingual: English, Russian, Spanish - an asset with the influx of immigrants into the County.
These are photographs of drug dealer Laughman who was allowed to squat at our house, destroy it, including with fentanyl contamination, and threaten violence against our daughter with impunity.
They were obtained from Facebook account of his girlfriend and filed in court here and here.
Note the sign that Laughman, a convicted felon, put on our house, saying "FUCK THE POLICE, I WILL SHOOT".
Note how Laughman's girlfriend - very much alive, still uncharged for anything - directly harassed and intimidated our daughter posing in front of our daughter's cameras in a threatening mask. She was not charged with anything.
Note that Mills' police records, provided to us on a FOIL APPEAL (initially withheld) DO NOT mention the contents of the sign and DO NOT contain a picture of the sign.
A convicted felon MAY NOT possess guns.
It is a SEPARATE criminal offense.
Yet, nobody prosecuted Laughman, and instead they protected Laughman from legitimate complaints of our daughter - a sure sign of a CI.
These records establish that Laughman was convicted of felony grand larceny in Chenango County in 2015. In 2017, he faced four felony drug-sale charges in Delaware County, including three class C felonies and one class B felony.
On July 3, 2017, Laughman pleaded guilty to selling heroin. He was adjudicated a second felony offender and sentenced to four years in prison followed by two years of post-release supervision.
His probation was also revoked, resulting in an additional concurrent sentence of one to three years.
These are judicial records, not rumors about Laughman's past.
Laughman's criminal proceedings involved the criminal justice establishment of Delaware County, including officials serving under District Attorneys Richard Northrup and John Hubbard, and prosecutor John A. McBride, who subsequently became a Supreme Court justice.
The criminal records establish that the authorities knew Laughman's background. His convictions and supervision history were matters of official record.
They also raise an obvious question: how did a repeat felony offender and heroin dealer come to occupy our property, remain there despite repeated police interventions, and die there in October 2024?
The district attorney explains the confidential-informant system
On November 13, 2024, just twenty days after Laughman's death, Delaware County District Attorney Shawn Smith gave a recorded interview discussing drug enforcement.
Smith described the interviewing and debriefing of confidential informants and cooperation among the District Attorney's Office, the Sheriff's Department, the New York State Police, and local police departments, including Delhi.
His interview described an established method of drug enforcement: law-enforcement agencies obtain information from people who have access to criminal activity.
That method creates a conflict of interests when the informant is himself a repeat offender.
The government wants information. The informant wants to remain out of custody. The public wants drug trafficking stopped, and it wants safety from violence of drug addicts and dealers. The addict needs treatment.
These interests often collide. DA Smith made sure they collided in Laughman's case.
An offender who is useful as an informant may have an incentive to preserve his criminal connections. Law enforcement may have an incentive to preserve his access to those connections.
The result can be a system in which the very activity the government publicly condemns becomes the means by which it conducts investigations.
Smith's interview did not identify Laughman by name. But, reading all the records available to us before discovery, filed with the court and now made public here, his interview is a EULOGY to the goddamn violent drug dealer that helped Smith so much in drumming up convictions where New York State drug lab supposedly failed Smith in going after lower-level drug offenders.
Our litigation raises the question of Laughman's use as a confidential informant and the government's use of our property in connection with drug enforcement. The government fights tooth and claw - including by underhanded use of Chenango County's Joseph A. McBride, a former DA-turned Judge involved on both sides of proceedings.
The public is entitled to examine the records bearing on that question, including the decisions made by prosecutors, probation and parole authorities, and police officers who dealt with Laughman.
What happened at 201 Main Street
Our property at 201 Main Street became - with condonation, help and taxpayer-backed financing from Delaware County, the Town of Delhi and the Village of Delhi - a place of unauthorized occupation, drug-related activity, violent threats, theft, and destruction.
Amy Merklen and Tina Mole of Delaware County, County Attorney and the Chairperson of the Board of Supervisors, refused to provide to us records of financing of the drug dealing squatters at our properties - on "privacy" grounds.
The Village of Delhi police knew Laughman occupied the building. Our daughter's affidavit establishes their presence there every day. Delhi Village police records independently establish that they had access to the house and even prosecuted Laughman for theft of water from the Village of Delhi from the inside of our house Laughman seized.
Police Chief Michael Mills produced records in response to our Freedom of Information Law requests. Those records documented repeated police involvement, theft-of-services issues, lack of essential utilities, and continuing occupation.
Throughout the records of Delhi Village police reports falsely designate us as landlords and Laughman as tenant. That was never so. He never had our permission to be there. Village and County knew it.
On April 16, 2024, Mills documented a water-theft investigation.
On June 17, 2024, police action involved Laughman's custody and a summons concerning theft of services and code violations.
On July 28, 2024, police again intervened at the property.
The building had no water or electricity. Another occupant reported paying rent to Laughman. The police treated the situation as a landlord-tenant dispute and directed the owners' representatives to pursue eviction proceedings.
There were also explicit threats of violence.
A sign displayed at the property declared:
"FUCK POLICE I WILL SHOOT."
Laughman threatened to shoot the eyeballs of a person associated with the property owners.
These threats were brought to police attention. According to the sworn account of the incident, the responding officer photographed the sign and cameras and explained that police intervention would require Laughman to point a gun. Those photographs DO NOT appear in the official police records provided to us on a FOIL appeal. They were SCRUBBED.
That is a CRIME of alteration of public records.
That crime remains uninvestigated and unprosecuted.
The police nevertheless permitted the occupation of our house by a known heroin dealer and addict, with multiple parole violations that should have but did not land him in prison, to continue.
He was convicted of a goddamn B FELONY - by John Hubbard as DA and Dick Norhrup as judge.
Consider what this means.
The police knew the building lacked essential utilities - destroyed by squatters with County's, Town's and Village's help - including specifically Amy Merklen's help, we provided a detailed account of it to the court. They knew about theft-of-services violations. They knew Laughman was occupying property that belonged to somebody else. They were confronted with a threatening sign and a specific threat to shoot a person.
Their response protected the continuation of the occupation.
The Village's own records establish repeated knowledge of conditions at the property. The government cannot erase that knowledge by subsequently characterizing the building as abandoned.
The SUPPOSED death of James Laughman
On October 24, 2024, Laughman was SUPPOSEDLY found dead inside our property. I DO NOT KNOW whether that was true.
As a criminal defense attorney, I know of many episodes when the local law enforcement let a CI escape to another state.
The County refused to show me coroner's report of the supposed death.
The County refused to show me photographs of the supposedly dead Laughman - due to "privacy" of the supposedly dead drug dealer.
He may be enjoying Florida beaches - as County's previous CI was for some time, James Bathen, whose burglary and attempted arson of our home law office at 203 Main Street at the time I was still a licensed criminal defense attorney the County also refused to investigate and prosecute.
As to 201 Main and the supposed finding of Laughman's supposed dead body (and his girlfriend, alive next to him in an "altered state of mind") - they also allegedly discovered two dogs. One live, one dead.
The called in animal-control to take the live dog.
They left the dead dog inside the building and Michael Mills tried to impose my daughter with pushing Narcan on her in a hypocritical "concern" about her health if she ventures into what he said a building contaminated by fentanyl.
She is not the building's owner. She did not so venture.
We refused to venture either. We instead sued.
Before the Laughman's story, Delaware County DSS contacted us only when - this is from different reports, we never got any records - approximately 45 dogs had been removed from the property by the SPCA while the County continued to finance the non-paying moratorium squatter there whose unlawful dog-breeding operation caused the house at 201 Main Street, Delhi, NY (that is during moratorium on eviction) to be covered in dog shit to such a degree that SPCA reported to DSS that walls, ceilings, floors were covered with liquied, solid and fossilized dog shit, and dog shit clogged and destroyed the furnace - in the middle of winter.
Now - when Laughman was supposedly found dead in the house on October 24, 2025, County police, Village police, and SUNY police present on the property called in two people - Town of Delhi dog warden and Village of Delhi Code Enforcer. Both came, Town of Delhi dog warden retrieved the live dog, leaving the decomposing carcass of the dead dog for us to enjoy - together with drug-contaminated and needle-ridden house and property.
The Code Enforcement Officer of the Village of Delhi - the glorious Delaware County Republican Chair Josh Morgan who has his finger in every pie - put a stop occupancy order on the door of 201 Main Street, Delhi NY - while NEVER, until this day, sending a notice to us, the property owners.
That same Josh Morgan - or Town Code Enforcement officer - never put a stop occupancy order on the house when it was still redeemable after the dog shitting squatter was finally removed from it by the County.
The County first tried to coerce us to buy a new furnace for the dog-shitting squatter because we are "landlords", and when we refused and required to remove the squatter from the turned-unliveable house, refused to do that and SEIZED our house for public use claiming that they have a difficulty locating a replacement housing for the dog-shitting squatter due to her supposed mental health issues.
Mental health issues did abound - she talked to me on the phone about an African prince coming to marry her.
According to my information, her boyfriend - who suffered an unexplained health deterioration, was air-lifted to Albany Med and, as far as I know, died there - expressed concerns about his safety due to her mental health issues.
The County, as far as I know, never investigated the death of Richard Harnosky as a homicide by the dog-shitting squatter.
They should. There is no statute of limitations on homicides.
The contrast is striking. The authorities had known that the property was turned unliveable before Laughman got in.
They had a LEGAL obligation to stop the occupancy of the building without any eviction - not available during moratorium, and to let us remediate the property while it was still possible.
But, doing so would have required the County to reveal its role in financing the dog-shitting squatter whlie the unliveable condition was created and deteriorated. Now they claim statute of limitations - because they concealed the condition long enough for us to sue early enough for their taste. They also claim that we need to be barred from this litigation, with sanctions, and from future litigation, with sanctions, simply because we caught the County, Town and Village government in gross misconduct involving public safety.
Note - and you can walk right to the door of 201 Main Street, Delhi, NY and look - that Village of Delhi DOES NOT warn people of drug, including fentanyl, contamination inside the house, or needle contamination. That means that children and other nuisance trespassers may still break in and get hurt.
Guess what - we DID NOT enter that building since the stop occupancy order. We are not responsible for creation of that condition, and we will not risk our lives or lives of our contractors to remediate it. Those who did it should remediate it at their own expense.
Once again, County, Town and Village waited to stop occupancy of the building long after they knew of its unliveable condition.
They CONTINUED TO TAX it as LIVEABLE all along.
They now claim that our pursuit of remedial damages agaisnt them is frivolous.
The effective termination of the occupation came only after Laughman was declared dead.
A heroin addict with a history of serious criminal convictions - and a young one - had supposedly spent his final years, instead of being cleaned up in state prison where he belonged because of his B FELONY conviction for SALE OF HEROIN - in a building without water, electric or sewer - Michael Mills' police report reports HUMAN REFUSE in the house. They were human-shitting on the floor over the previous dog shit - and left it for us to handle after Laughman supposedly dropped dead there.
And - the County refused to release to us records showing whether Laughman was a graduate of Delaware County "Drug Court". Claiming privacy associated with a MEDICAL TREATMENT FACILITY.
Now - there is no such thing in New York State Constitution as a DRUG COURT. NONE.
Nor in any statute.
It is a CONTRACT with federal government. That contract the County ALSO refused to reveal to us - even though its own Public Defender was openly discussing with the press his exclusion from ex parte negotiation between Judge Rosa (the handler of that "Drug Court") and DA Smith - ex parte negotiations confirmed by email exchanges I received through FOIL from the same County.
The courthouse is not a proper place for a MEDICAL FACILITY. Nor IS THERE A MEDICAL FACILITY - it requires all kinds of licensing and staffing requirements. Drug court is NOT a medical facility.
Furthermore, Judge Rosa is as much a medical professional as Santa Klaus.
So refusal to release to me Laughman's potential drug court files - remember, DA Smith grandstood in temporarily bowing out of drug court after Laughman's supposed death on claims (or rather an attempt for a clumsy disclaimer) that drug courts are releasing drug dealers into the streets making the community unsafe - but without mentioning DA Smith's own role in that arrangement.
BECAUSE: such an acknowledgment, same as County's refusal to timely put code enforcement authorities on notice of unliveable conditions inside 201 Main Street where County was financing a de facto homeless shelter, halfway and drug sting operation in succession and combined - would be exposing the County to liability.
Better to sweep it under the rug, let it fester until it explodes into your face - and when it does, blame the victim and the messenger.
Drug courts are supposed to prevent such outcomes as actually happened with Laughman.
A prison sentence, properly administered with addiction treatment, could have removed Laughman from the drug environment and provided an opportunity for rehabilitation.
He was 42 when he supposedly died from a PREDICTABLE overdose. Predictable since his plea of guilty on July 3, 2017 for a B felony drug sale in Delaware County Court accepted by Dick Northrup and John Hubbard where he admitted in open court under the penalty of perjury that he sold heroin to support his own addiction.
A heroin addiction does not go away on its own.
For his own benefit, Laughman was safer in prison.
Instead, his life - according to government's own reports - ended at 201 Main Street on October 24, 2025 because the government refused to pack him away to prison where he would be cleaned up and kept safe and alive.
Because the government could not pass up on exploiting his addiction for its own benefit.
Whatever information Laughman may have supplied to law enforcement, it did not save him. It killed him.
The people responsible for the system
The officials who administered Delaware County's criminal justice system during Laughman's repeated encounters with the law have names.
Richard D. Northrup Jr. served as district attorney and subsequently as county judge. John L. Hubbard served as district attorney and subsequently became county judge. The then-Chenango County DA Joseph A. McBride prosecuted Laughman on his first felony conviction and commenced a violation of probation proceeding based on his drug sale indictment of 2017 singed by John Hubbard in Delaware County Court.
McBride then became a Judge and sua sponte ex parte sanctioned both my husband and I for our quick - and correct - assessment that Laughman was a convicted drug dealer - even before we had the records. We represented such people as criminal defense attorneys long enough (my husband for 37 years, I was working for my husband as a legal assistant for 10 years, then was a defense attorney for 6.5 years) - and that included the local CIs - to know a CI when we saw the signs.
McBride WAS NOT assigned to either Neroni v Mole or Neroni v Delaware County. Neroni v Mole was dismissed on false presentation of County litigation counsel Miller and a motion to vacate the dismissal on new evidence is pending.
The dismissal was without finding of frivolous conduct or sanctions. Neroni v Delaware County is still unadjudicated.
Yet, McBride, who was not assigned judge in these cases, in full knowledge that we were right and in full knowledge of his disqualification to even reach these cases, bound by Advisory Opinion for Judicial Ethics 25-20 to first disclose his prosecutorial role in the case - did no such thing and instead sua sponte ex parte declared that Neroni v Mole and the yet unadjudicated Neroni v Delaware County are frivolous and barred our access to the court forever.
After that, he duplicated that bar in a yet another case, also sua sponte ex parte, and then ERASED - not denied, but ERASED - four motions filed by us in order to restore OUR RIGHT TO APPELLATE REVIEW. An ex parte sua sponte decision (without notice made by the judge himself without a motion from anyone) is not appealable as of right. DA/Judge McBride wants to keep it so.
The NYS Commission for Judicial Conduct is asleep at the wheel.
These are the officials whose decisions and institutional practices deserve really, really close public scrutiny.
By the way, Richard Northrup publicly promoted the Delaware County Drug Treatment Court. At a New York State Senate hearing, he described a program in which offenders pleaded guilty, entered treatment under probation supervision, and faced prison if they failed the program. He presented this as a successful approach. I wonder whether he included Laughman into that assessment of success.
The New York court system continues to describe the Delaware County Drug Treatment Court as an alternative to incarceration, involving supervised treatment and testing.
The public should be able to compare those promises with the "treatment" outcome of repeat offenders such as Laughman.
Look once again at his criminal records, his repeated violations - he left the Delaware County shelter, he was thrown out of County's alcohol and drug treatment program for noncompliance, he was arrested for driving while ability impaired by drugs - AFTER his B felony conviction, while ON PAROLE.
He was further arrested with a crack pipe, being violent at a convenience store.
RESIDENTS OF DELAWARE COUNTY! VOTERS!
We were - as I said - criminal defense attorneys. There were zillions of our clients who came to us charged by the same authorities that were babying Laughman and not prosecuting him for MUCH, MUCH less - like SOMEBODY ELSE's beer can in their home fridge.
Laughman remained on the streets because he was A VALUABLE ASSET for Smith. DA Smith acknowledged in his interview interlinked here that CIs were instrumental for him, raising the rates of convictions for lower-level drug felonies from ZERO caused by bail and discovery reform statutes.
That exploitation by the local law enforcement resulted in a seizure and destruction of private property - while the County knew that they are no longer immune from such actions because of prior similar litigation in Colao v Mills in 2004, 2007.
Qualified immunity given to the County's police officers in Colao was a double-edged sword: it at the same time (1) gave immunity to officers ON THAT OCCASION; and (2) extinguished immunity FOR FUTURE SIMILAR ACTIONS. So - here we go. We are right there in court for the same thing. And County Attorney Merklen, DA Smith, former DA Hubbard, ADAs Norhrup and Lamont are raising immunity that is LONG GONE - being competent professionals that they are. Not.
These questions concern identifiable public officials exercising public authority.
The county attorney's denial
When we brought litigation over the destruction of our property, Delaware County's longtime litigation counsel Frank Miller denied our allegations concerning Laughman's background and the government's conduct.
In Neroni v. Molé, Miller's Amended Answer denied paragraph 78 of our complaint he denied all allegations, including that Laughman was a drug addict and had criminal history.
That statement was knowingly false.
That statement caused dismissal of the case.
County and Miller fought for 2 years against us in court, asking - and bringing from DA/Judge McBride - sanctions upon us for telling the truth that he knew based on RECORDS.
The criminal records subsequently obtained by us established Laughman's felony history, heroin-sale conviction, second-felony-offender status, and revocation of probation. We now ask the court to sanction Miller, the Delaware County, its County Attorney, its County Chairperson, its Sheriff, its DA, as well as Northrup, Lamont and Hubbard in their former or present capacities as prosecutors (respectively) for frivolously seeking sanctions against us in full knowledge that we are right.
Meanwhile, the police records produced through FOIL documented repeated official involvement at 201 Main Street.
Miller also described our property as "apparently abandoned" and attributed its condition to our departure from New York and failure to maintain it. Yet, HE KNEW that was a false statement when making it.
We retained ownership of the property. We continued paying taxes - even though they were fraudulently imposed as if the building rendered unliveable with the help of the government by squatters and drug dealers was still inhabitable - that's what the tax classification said, repeatedly, year after year. The police knew Laughman was occupying it. They knew what was going on. They did not stop Laughman while we could still remediate the property. Laughman was too valuable an asset for the local law enforcemetn to stop him.
The official records should be compared with Miller's false pleadings all over the place in all cases involving us as parties. They show why his account of what happened to our property is directly belied by his clients' own documentation.
The cost of using criminals as police assets
There is a fundamental problem with a drug-enforcement system that depends on offenders maintaining their access to criminal activity.
The government can claim success when an informant helps produce arrests. But the number of arrests does not measure the harm caused while the informant remains active.
It does not measure the drugs distributed, the people threatened, the property stolen or destroyed, or the lives lost.
And it does not measure what happens to the informant.
Laughman was a heroin addict with serious criminal convictions. He needed effective intervention. His history of repeated encounters with the criminal justice system gave public authorities opportunities to intervene.
Instead, his life ended inside our property.
We are left with a destroyed building, years of litigation, and government records that document repeated official knowledge of the conditions in which Laughman lived.
The public deserves a complete accounting of how the system operated, who made the decisions, and whether the use of confidential informants influenced those decisions.
What voters are entitled to know
Delaware County residents elect district attorneys, judges, sheriffs, and other officials whose decisions affect criminal justice and public safety.
The record of James Laughman's criminal proceedings, the police response at 201 Main Street, the treatment of threats against people associated with the property, and the government's subsequent litigation positions are matters of legitimate public concern.
The public should have access to the relevant probation and parole records, confidential-informant arrangements where disclosure is lawful, and the decisions that permitted Laughman's continued presence in the community.
Voters can examine these records and decide for themselves what accountability they expect from the officials entrusted with public safety.
Drug rehabilitation is a serious public responsibility. So is the protection of the community. So is the protection of private property.
James Laughman is - SUPPOSEDLY - dead when he could be imprisoned, but clean and alive, facing many more years of productive life and a prospect of a family.
Our property was destroyed and contaminated by fentanyl, needles and what else - we do not know. Our daughter was first threatened and harmed by the drug dealer CI, denied police protection when she - repeatedly - asked for it, and then rendered unemployed because she sought police protection and provided an affidavit for us about what was happening at 201 Main Street.
WAS IT WORTH IT, DA SMITH? WAS IT WORTH IT, GARY ROSA? WAS IT WORTH IT, CRAIG DUMOND? WAS IT WORTH IT, MICHAEL MILLS?
WAS IT WORTH IT - dear members of the public who were made to finance all of it, unknowingly, while being exposed to the very hazards that DA Smith hypocritically - and temporarily - ADMITTED in his interview of November 2024 when he withdrew from drug court for just 5 seconds, protecting himself from liability after Laughman's supposed OD death at 201 Main Street among needles and fentanyl?
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