20 arrested in East End heroin bust

Twenty people from Long Island and Queens have been arrested on charges of selling and possessing heroin and other narcotics in what Suffolk County authorities said Wednesday was the biggest bust ever on the East End.

At a Riverhead news conference Wednesday, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said a nine-month investigation by the East End Drug Task Force netted arrests from Queens to Mattituck to Southampton in the past 24 to 48 hours along with thousands of dollars in drug money. In one example of how Spota said the narcotics moved from suppliers in Queens to Long Island, Juan Pabon, of Ridgewood, who Spota called a major New York City heroin supplier, sold the heroin to Terrence Dozier of Calverton and Terrence Smith of Greenport. Dozier and Smith then sold it to Kathryn Schrippa and Michael Maffetone, both of Mattituck, who in turn sold it on the streets of Riverhead, Flanders, and Southold, authorities said. All were named in indictment.

"We have never seen a flow such as this coming into the East End," Spota said.

"The breakup of a major heroin distribution ring in the East End is just an opening salvo," Spota said. "We are not going to go away."

The arrests came as Long Island continues in the clutches of a heroin problem that has gripped nearly every community. In Suffolk, a task force's heroin-related arrests in its first three months of operation this year have increased 33 percent compared with the same first quarter last year.

In Nassau, authorities have intensified the county's anti-heroin efforts after the well-publicized death of 18-year-old Natalie Ciappa in 2008. Since then, police convened a heroin summit and began notifying school districts of heroin arrests.

During the latest investigation, the task force seized 4,430 bags of heroin packaged for street sale, 5.6 ounces of cocaine, scales, wax packets and $173,000 in cash, Spota said.

Spota's office estimated that as many as 2,500 bags of heroin a week were sold to eastern Long Island customers, about $3 million worth of heroin per year.

Police said highlights of their investigation included finding heroin in a Coram defendant's home, along with $16,000 in cash under a nightstand, $19,000 in cash on a bedroom floor and nearly $20,000 in a pair of pants hanging in a closet as well as $90,000 in a safe-deposit box. In the Coram arrest, detectives said they found crack cocaine cooking on a stove.

The bust was not Suffolk's largest, but the biggest on the East End. Law enforcement officials said detectives will make at least one more arrest of a Queens resident. The task force combines detectives and officers from East End police departments, Suffolk County police emergency services and narcotics sections, Suffolk County Park Police, State Police and the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office, Spota's office said.

Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst said schools and hospitals have said there has been an increased use of the drug. She said Southampton Town police will add two officers to the task force. "It's a significant problem," she said. "It certainly escalates in the summer. But it is also in our everyday population."

With Matthew Chayes and

Gary Dymski

Halting the heroin trade

In recent months, authorities have been focusing on putting a dent into the heroin drug trade. Here are some examples.

Suffolk task force

Suffolk police created a task force that County Executive Steve Levy said made 279 heroin-related arrests in its first three months of operation this year,compared with 209 heroin-related arrests for the same first quarter last year.

Major arrests

In December 2009 more than 20 people from Long Island were arrested for bringing 1,000 bags of heroin to Suffolk County every six weeks, prosecutors said. Four people from Brooklyn and Queens, where the Long Islanders in the ring traveled to buy their heroin supply, which they then distributed, were also arrested following the six-month investigation.

Record heroin seizure

In August, prosecutors announced the largest seizure of uncut heroin in Suffolk County history. The dozen packages of heroin, wrapped in tape and paper and weighing about 17 pounds total, were nearly pure. Once cut, they would have yielded about 500,000 doses with a street value of between $8 million and $10 million, prosecutors said. Two New Jersey men found with the heroin were arrested July 25 in Melville. The uncut heroin was likely destined for a mill, where it would be ground, mixed with additives and packaged, authorities said.