Pubdate: Thu, 14 Jul 2005
Source: Berkshire Eagle, The (Pittsfield, MA)
Contact:  http://www.berkshireeagle.com/
Address: PO Box 1171, Pittsfield, MA 01202
Fax: (413) 499-3419
Copyright: 2005 New England Newspapers, Inc.
Author: Ellen G. Lahr,  Berkshire Eagle Staff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?217 (Drug-Free  Zones)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum  Sentencing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United  States)
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1091/a12.html
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n882/a04.html
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n779/a04.html

SURVEYOR TESTIFIES IN SCHOOL-ZONE DRUG SALE TRIAL

PITTSFIELD -- On a single day last Oct. 27, land surveyor Eugene 
Galvagni Jr. was guided by an undercover police officer to at least 
17 spots in and around the Taconic parking lot area in Great 
Barrington, where drugs and money had swapped hands during the prior summer.

Galvagni hammered nails into the ground to mark locations that 
undercover investigator Felix Aguirre had pinpointed as the site of 
drug deals he had made with 17 young people. Where nails didn't work, 
Galvagni used paint to mark the  spots.

According to Galvagni's Superior Court testimony yesterday in the 
trial of Kyle Sawin, 18, he returned to measure the distances from 
those spots to the Great Barrington Co-operative Preschool and the 
Searles/Bryant School complex. A veteran of school-zone measures for 
court cases, Galvagni said during his testimony that he was hired by 
the Berkshire district attorney's office last fall to verify that 17 
young people had made their drug deals within 1,000 feet  of the two 
Great Barrington schools.

A school-zone drug charge carries     a minimum mandatory two-year jail term.

A total of 18 people were arrested in late September in connection 
with the investigation that began in January 2004 and that picked up 
steam during the summer. Seventeen were facing school-zone charges 
along with other drug dealing offenses. One suspect caught in the 
sting allegedly made her drug sale outside the school zone.

Sawin, facing three charges of marijuana distribution and three 
charges of violating drug laws within a school zone, allegedly sold 
drugs to an undercover officer on June 30, July 6 and Sept. 3, well 
within school-zone boundaries, according to testimony.

Galvagni, who said he has measured some 200 school zones for the 
district attorney's office over the years, measured one of Sawin's 
sales as occurring 498 feet from the preschool entrance and 856 feet 
from Searles/Bryant. Two other sales ranged from 509 feet to 713 feet 
from the preschool, but beyond the Searles/ Bryant boundary. The 
preschool was closed for the summer at the time Sawin allegedly 
swapped drugs for money with Aguirre. Two of the 18 arrested have 
already pleaded guilty to their charges. A marijuana distribution 
case against Alexandra Brenner, 18, was continued in District Court 
in March without a finding.

A more serious slate of charges against Ryan Babcock, 20, of 
Housatonic resulted Monday in a state prison sentence of four to six 
years for both cocaine and marijuana dealing in a school zone. 
Babcock pleaded guilty in Superior Court. Sawin is the first to 
challenge the charges against him in a jury trial. He is also one of 
seven suspects whose cases have been championed by a newly 
formed  organization, Concerned Citizens for Appropriate Justice, 
which has raised a protest against District Attorney David F. 
Capeless' use of the school-zone law  against first-time offenders.

Entrapment alleged Sawin's attorney, Judith Knight, has indicated 
that she intends to show that her client was a victim of police 
entrapment, a vulnerable young man who would  not have sold drugs 
were it not for the pressure and coercion of Aguirre. Knight may have 
a challenge ahead, according to other attorneys keeping an eye on the 
case as a possible harbinger of what is to come for their own 
clients. Knight must show that Sawin was the victim of a police 
setup. But during opening arguments yesterday, Assistant District 
Attorney Richard Locke told the 14-member jury that Sawin was, in 
fact, an "entrepreneur," who carried marijuana, a scale and plastic 
bags in his backpack last summer while selling drugs not just to 
Aguirre, but also to others, some of whom wound up being arrested in 
the September sweep.

At one point in June 2004, said Locke, Sawin announced to friends in 
the parking lot: "I need to know what people want, because I'm going 
out and bagging up." Aguirre, on that occasion, bought a $50 bag of 
marijuana, said Locke, who recounted two other instances, one of 
which included sales to two other people. Knight, presenting her 
opening argument to the jury, said that the proximity of the schools 
to the Taconic parking lot had no effect on schoolchildren, and  that 
children were not targeted or sought out for drug sales. The schools 
and  the parking lot are not within eyesight of each other, she 
noted, and are separated by Main Street and a commercial area.

"It was not known to be a school zone," she said. "The officers knew 
it and set up the buys there."

The Berkshire County Drug Task Force, she said, "swooped down on 
Great Barrington," lodging drug charges and school-zone charges 
against 17 people, 11  of whom were teenagers, she said. She 
described it as an overzealous investigation and now an overzealous 
prosecution.

Sawin, she said, wanted to fit in, wanted to be cool, had a summer 
job and hung out where his friends were. The methods of Aguirre, she 
said, were "entirely questionable," and Sawin was a "vulnerable, 
susceptible teenager." Aguirre, she said, was aggressive and 
persistent with Sawin and others "and would not take no for an answer."

Knight has kept Sawin's case in the context of the larger 
investigation, ensuring with her questioning that the jury is alerted 
that 17 other people were targeted in the drug sweep last year.

Trooper testifies During a half-day of trial business yesterday, the 
jury also heard testimony from state police Trooper Christopher J. 
Mieklejohn, the drug evidence officer  for the drug task force.

After Locke questioned him about the chain of evidence for the drugs 
purchased by Aguirre, Knight took a turn, asking him to recount a bit 
about the years he has spent as an undercover police officer.

Setting the stage for her questioning of Aguirre, Knight asked 
Mieklejohn whether it is his job to trick, deceive or lie to gain the 
trust of suspects. "Your objective is to blend in," said Mieklejohn, 
"to become part of the subculture."

Testimony will continue today.
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MAP posted-by: Beth