Queens DA: LIE turned into 'heroin highway'

The Long Island Expressway served as the "Heroin Highway" for scores of well-heeled Suffolk and Nassau residents who traveled it to New York City to buy drugs, officials said Friday.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, at a news conference announcing that police had broken up a narcotics ring, said that 96 heroin users from Suffolk County and 15 from Nassau County were arrested over the past few months in "Operation Heroin Highway."

The customers, who police described as coming from comfortable middle-class backgrounds, would travel to the city to buy the drugs from a gang operating out of Brooklyn and Queens.

Twelve people from the two boroughs also were arrested and were accused of selling South American heroin. They could face up to 25 years to life in prison, if convicted.

Drug purchases were made in city restaurants, hotels, diners, electronics stores and even a 99-cent store in an attempt to thwart police surveillance, Brown said. Customers buying drugs traveled into the Ridgewood and Bushwick areas, police said.

"The Long Island Expressway turned into heroin highway," Brown said.

The big draw for the buyers was the low price -- about $400 for 100 glassine envelopes of heroin -- compared with $1,000 to $1,500 for the same amount on Long Island, said NYPD Insp. Michael Bryan, head of the Queens narcotics command.

"Most of the customers were from good families, seemingly having it all," Bryan said.

The buyers -- typically 20 to 25 years old -- will be offered a plea for possession and then enter a treatment program, officials said. If they successfully complete treatment, the charges would be purged from their records, Brown said, adding that some users were reselling to friends.

The suspected ringleader, Jermel Broadhurst, 30, of Astoria, faces the maximum 25 years to life in prison, if convicted, Brown said.

The arrests were applauded by Maureen Rossi, president of Kings Park in the kNOw, an anti-drug civic group. "We're an island in crisis," she said. "I think that's evident. This is no longer our dirty little secret."

The 96 Suffolk County users arrested included 20 from Kings Park, 14 from Smithtown and 7 from Nesconset, officials said. Of the 15 users from Nassau, East Meadow and Massapequa each accounted for four arrests.

Brown also said heroin use among Long Island teens had skyrocketed in recent years.

"Rather than inject it, the drug is snorted and often used in potentially dangerous combinations with such prescription medication as OxyContin," he said.

With Carl MacGowan