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
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.
People v. Rodriguez, 121 A.D.3d 1435 (3d Dep't 2014).
Rodriguez v. Griffin, No. 9:16-CV-1037, 2018 WL 6446199 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2018).
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.
People v. Laughman, Delaware County Indictment No. 2017-025, County Court Case No. 2017-321, guilty plea and sentencing proceedings of July 3, 2017.
New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, Opinion 25-20 (March 27, 2025).
Neroni v. Delaware County, Index No. EF2025-447 (Sup. Ct., Delaware County), Amended Verified Complaint and related exhibits.
Neroni v. Watershed Agricultural Council, Index No. EF2026-106 (Sup. Ct., Delaware County), orders, sanctions proceedings, and related filings.
Neroni v. Baker, Index No. EF2026-112 (Sup. Ct., Delaware County), orders, sanctions proceedings, and related filings.
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