A judge has ordered state regulators to allow a company previously headed by former congressman William Delahunt to move forward with plans to open medical marijuana dispensaries in Mashpee and Plymouth, ruling it was improperly denied licenses last year. In a 22-page ruling Monday, a Suffolk Superior Court judge found that the Department of Public Health failed to follow its own regulations in June when it rejected a bid by Medical Marijuana of Massachusetts to open three dispensaries, after initially supporting it. [continues 725 words]
US Attorney Carmen Ortiz is weighing whether to use federal law to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries, including those proposed for Boston and Brookline, if they open within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, or public housing. Under federal law, the 15 dispensaries and additional cultivation sites provisionally approved in Massachusetts could face prosecution and asset forfeiture if they open too close to a school - even if the locations would be allowed under local and state regulations. A Globe review found that at least six of the dispensaries would be within 1,000 feet of schools or playgrounds. [continues 762 words]
State health officials on Friday approved a highly coveted license for Boston's first medical marijuana dispensary, selecting Patriot Care Corp. to operate a facility near Downtown Crossing. The company, which was already provisionally approved to open a dispensary in Lowell, also won permission Friday for a location in Greenfield, making it the only company positioned to run three dispensaries in Massachusetts. In addition, state officials said they would allow another company to move forward with plans to open dispensaries in Brookline and Northampton - a decision that drew sharp criticism from some critics who allege the company has received special treatment. [continues 943 words]
Want Caregiver to Resume Selling Fifteen patients and a self-described caregiver who has been selling them marijuana for medical use are seeking a court order that would allow them to resume until dispensaries are open in Massachusetts. The patients, who say they suffer from cancer, multiple sclerosis, and other debilitating conditions, and William Downing, who owns Reading-based Yankee Care Givers, filed a suit Thursday in the state Supreme Judicial Court alleging that state health officials have harmed patients by warning Downing to close his flourishing marijuana delivery business. [continues 576 words]
A federal appeals court has refused to overturn the decades-old conviction of a marijuana dealer who argued that FBI agents lied during pretrial hearings in his case to protect longtime -informant James "Whitey" Bulger. The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit concluded Monday that even if the FBI withheld information about Bulger's role in the 1983 arrest of Michael F. Murray, the case did not warrant a new trial or sentence -because there was overwhelming evidence that Murray was guilty. [continues 608 words]
Budget Constraints Shut Down Two Special Units The head of the State Police said he has disbanded the agency's decades-old drug diversion unit and auto theft strike force to deal with current realities: a shortage of troopers, a budget shortfall, and increased responsibilities. Colonel Timothy P. Albensaid the dissolution of the two squads at the end of December allowed him to shift 25troopers to the Massachusetts Turnpike and Logan International Airport, both areas where police vacancies have gone unfilled and more forces were needed. He said it will also help him reduce a $3 million deficit in this year's State Police budget because their salaries will come from the highway and airport budgets. [continues 924 words]
Pizarro Among Three Arrested His days as a Boston police officer ended last summer, when he was arrested for helping two fellow officers protect drug shipments, instead of the public. But yesterday, after a year behind bars while awaiting trial in a case that has rocked the police department, Carlos A. Pizarro broke ranks with his former colleagues, who maintain their innocence, and pleaded guilty to federal cocaine charges. Dressed in an orange prison suit, his ankles shackled, Pizarro nodded solemnly when US District Judge William G. Young asked if Pizarro had knowingly guarded a shipment of cocaine last year for undercover FBI agents posing as drug dealers. [continues 756 words]
US Attorney Vows To Follow The Evidence Boston police and the FBI will investigate whether a corruption case reaches deeper and higher into the department than three officers accused in an intricate network of schemes that included stealing the identities of unsuspecting motorists, protecting truckloads of cocaine, smuggling illegal immigrants, and guarding after-hours parties where uniformed officers mingled with drug dealers and prostitutes. "If there is sufficient evidence to charge any other individuals, they will be charged," US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said yesterday as he announced the three officers' arrests after a 2 1/2-year undercover FBI investigation. [continues 1304 words]
Prosecutors Look To Avoid Inquiry On Alleged Informants Federal prosecutors have agreed to drop some of the charges against a man accused of trafficking marijuana, to avoid court hearings into allegations of government misconduct involving two alleged informants. Arlindo Dossantos said that after his arrest on federal drug charges in 1999, two suspected FBI informants paid for his lawyer, pressured him to cooperate in a federal probe into corruption in the New Bedford Police Department, and threatened to hurt his family if he did not help them smuggle marijuana into Massachusetts. [continues 658 words]
Veteran Detective Tied To Cocaine Theft Federal agents and State Police officers were huddled in unmarked cars, waiting for a drug deal to go down outside the Malden Medical Center on the day before Christmas last year, when they were caught by surprise as a familiar figure slammed his undercover cruiser into the suspected dealer's car. Malden Police Detective David Jordan, who had worked with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the Massachusetts State Police to bust drug dealers in the past, allegedly blocked the dealer's car with his police-issued Honda while another man fled into the woods with 3 kilograms of cocaine valued at $84,000. [continues 675 words]
US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan vowed yesterday to continue to make gun and drug cases a top priority for his office, insisting that such prosecutions have helped reduce violence in Boston and other cities. Sullivan lashed back at a federal judge who publicly criticized his office last week for spending too much time on low-level drug and gun cases that belonged in state court, instead of focusing on federal crimes such as public corruption and white-collar offenses that he said would have a greater impact on society. "I can't think of a more important use of federal resources than combining state and local and our efforts to reduce gun violence," said Sullivan, crediting the US Justice Department's Project Safe Neighborhoods with removing gun-toting criminals from crime-plagued communities. Gun charges brought in federal court, rather than state court, tend to carry much longer mandatory prison terms. "This program, virtually more than anything else we do, I know saves lives," said Sullivan. "If I have a choice between saving a life and looking at some corrupt planning board member, I would save lives." [continues 648 words]
A federal judge yesterday accused the US attorney's office in Massachusetts of spending too much time on drug and gun cases that belong in state court, instead of focusing on federal crimes such as public corruption and white-collar offenses that he said would have a greater impact on society. US District Judge Mark L. Wolf, in an unusually frank discussion with reporters, said his fundamental problem is with the type of cases being brought by federal prosecutors under US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan "and the fact that they are being brought, in my view, at the expense of important federal cases that it would take a lot of hard work to develop." [continues 1033 words]
Despite adopting sweeping new guidelines a year ago that tightened the rules for handling informants, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies continued to use an admitted drug dealer and con man to set up stings against other people, according to interviews with the informant. The informant told the Globe he has evaded jail since the 1950s, when he served a year for a Medford home invasion, because agents gave him ''leeway'' to commit crimes in exchange for information about gangsters, drug dealers, bank robbers, and art thieves. [continues 1437 words]
Changes Follow Furor Over FBI Mob Dealings Tough new Justice Department guidelines designed to prevent the cozy camaraderie that led to criminal charges against the star FBI agent who handled gangsters James ''Whitey'' Bulger and Stephen Flemmi will be put in place as early as today. The national guidelines, developed in the wake of federal court hearings in Boston throughout 1998 that exposed the controversial relationship between the FBI and Bulger and Flemmi - who are charged with killing 19 and 10 people respectively while working as FBI informants - will for the first time require the bureau to share information on informants with other agencies, including federal prosecutors. [continues 847 words]
More than $2 million worth of the designer drug ecstasy was seized last week when two Europeans were arrested at Logan Airport just after landing on a flight from Frankfurt, US Attorney Donald K. Stern announced last night. It was the matching Samsonite suitcases carried by Roland Ruehn, 37, of Germany, and Danut Sur, 26, of Sweden, that apparently tipped off US Customs officials at Logan International Airport. When Customs inspectors opened the identical suitcases, they found women's clothing and two heavy gift-wrapped packages, according to a complaint filed in US District Court. The men also both asserted that they planned to stay at the same Framingham hotel for a week. [continues 193 words]
A group that is urging police to stop arresting marijuana smokers sued the MBTA in federal court yesterday for refusing to display its advertisements on buses, trains and T stations. Change The Climate, a nonprofit group with offices in Greenfield, contends that the MBTA has violated its First Amendment rights by rejecting three ads because it doesn't like their message. One ad, bearing a picture of a teenager, says, ''Smoking pot is not cool, but we're not stupid, ya know. Marijuana is NOT cocaine or heroin.'' [continues 429 words]
Police Say Targets Were Two Ex-Clients A former federal probation officer-turned-criminal defense lawyer was charged yesterday with paying a purported hitman $11,000 to kill two former clients in a desperate bid to cover up his involvement in the kidnapping of a drug dealer. The arrest of Frederick Ford, 48, of North Andover, who worked in the US Probation Department for 17 years before leaving seven years ago to practice law, stunned colleagues who sat red-eyed in the back of US District Court in Boston as the 6-foot-6 Ford was hauled before a magistrate judge. The alleged murder-for-hire scheme was described in chilling detail in a court affidavit that was accompanied by a photograph of Ford meeting outside a Natick doughnut shop on July 27 with two undercover agents from the US Department of Labor's racketeering division. [continues 501 words]
