Pubdate: Fri, 02 Mar 2007
Source: Times, The (Trenton, NJ)
Copyright: 2007 The Times
Contact:  http://www.nj.com/times/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/458
Author: Kevin Shea
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

LAWMEN FINALLY NET THE 'BIG FISH'

Drug Probe Rounds Up Alleged Key Traffickers

To veteran Mercer County narcotics investigators, Gregory "Lamar" 
Gibson was the biggest fish they had never caught.

As the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office Special Investigations Unit 
(SIU) made drug cases against other traffickers over the years, 
Gibson allegedly sat atop a Trenton-based cocaine empire and 
defiantly drove a Bentley around the area, authorities alleged yesterday.

Yesterday, Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph L. Bocchini Jr. announced 
the end of "Operation Weeping Willow," a seven-month probe of cocaine 
and heroin dealing that sets two unofficial records: It's the biggest 
investigation in Mercer County history and it netted the largest haul 
of drugs, with 44 pounds of cocaine, 202 bricks of heroin and three 
pounds of marijuana taken off the streets.

The operation led to 42 arrests, including Gibson, who was nabbed on Jan. 12.

And the investigation also effectively puts Gibson out of the drug 
trade, Bocchini and Assistant Mercer County Prosecutor Jay Hindman 
said. The 33-year-old Gibson will be charged federally.

Also snared in the probe was Phong Trinh, 35, a nail salon owner from 
Philadelphia whom authorities say was Gibson's cocaine supplier.

The probe also delved into the world of heroin trafficking, where 
investigators charged Gibson's neighbor, Corey Spruill, 30, of North 
Willow Street in Trenton and Pierce Pack, 29, of Garfield Avenue, 
Trenton, with bringing heroin to the city via a livery car and female 
couriers, one of whom allegedly got off an NJ Transit train with 110 
bricks of heroin.

"This is important for Mercer County," Bocchini said as he laid out 
the details of the operation at a press conference at the Dempster 
Fire Training Center in Lawrence, along with U.S. Attorney for New 
Jersey Chris Christie and Gerard McAleer, special agent in charge of 
the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in New Jersey.

Pieces of the probe have become public in recent weeks. When 
authorities arrested Gibson in January at his North Willow Street 
home, they seized kilos of cocaine, more than 40 motorcycles and 
all-terrain vehicles from a warehouse he allegedly controlled across 
the street from his house.

A young female suspect who got off a train allegedly with a duffel 
bag of heroin destined for Pack in early December was arrested at the 
station. And Pack himself was arrested in late January as he and two 
other suspects allegedly came back from New York in a livery car 
filled with heroin.

Each time, the prosecutor's office was purposefully cagey while 
announcing the arrests, saying they were part of an ongoing probe.

Bocchini and his assistants tied it all together yesterday. 
Thirty-nine investigators from 21 local, state and federal agencies 
in New Jersey and Pennsylvania worked on the probe full time. Another 
100 pitched in on a part-time basis

"Without the manpower and resources provided by (agencies) involved, 
an investigation of this scope and magnitude would have never been 
possible," Bocchini said.

McAleer said the probe is a great example what he called the 
"ambidextrous prosecutorial approach" of federal and state 
prosecutors working together on a case. And he said that it's 
important to note that the closest Gibson will likely get to a 
Bentley again is reading a Car and Driver magazine in his prison cell.

"That's the good news here," McAleer said.

Of the 42 arrests, 10 of them were for major players who face drug 
distribution charges. The other 32 suspects were described as 
"customers," who either bought drugs from Gibson, Pack or Spruill for 
personal use, or resold it to others, Hindman said.

The probe started last fall with Spruill, a convicted drug dealer who 
lived on the 200 block of North Willow Street. Authorities knew him 
as a cocaine and heroin dealer, Bocchini said, and investigators 
started watching and buying drugs from him.

That led to Gibson, who lived a few doors away, a man known to 
authorities as the biggest cocaine dealer they had never arrested, 
Bocchini and Hindman said. With two suspects on Willow Street, 
investigators had the operation name.

Investigators learned that Spruill was allegedly getting his cocaine 
from Gibson and his heroin from Pack.

While one part of the probe focused on taking down Pack, Bocchini 
said, another zeroed in on Gibson, who would allegedly import cocaine 
in large amounts, but also step out of his house and make sales right 
on North Willow Street.

 From October to December, investigators learned that Gibson's 
cocaine source was Trinh, a Vietnamese national who allegedly 
supplied Gibson monthly, officials said.

The drugs were delivered by a trusted Trinh confidant, Joseph Walker, 
27, a Philadelphia native living in Sicklerville, Camden County, 
authorities said.

On Jan. 12, the case broke wide open.

With an Air National Guard surveillance plane recording from 5,000 
feet in the air, investigators watched as Walker allegedly handed 
Gibson a load of cocaine at the Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast 
Philadelphia, Bocchini said.

Investigators followed Gibson back to Trenton and he was arrested at 
the corner of North Stockton and Perry streets, where they seized 10 
kilos of cocaine from the back of his vehicle.

Trinh and Walker were apprehended by the DEA in Philadelphia the same 
day, and a few days later an additional eight kilos of cocaine were 
seized at a Bensalem storage locker rented by Walker, Bocchini said.

Authorities caught up with Spruill last week, arresting him at a 
North Willow Street home.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman