Results tagged “heroin”

The woman who crashed a van full of foster children into oncoming traffic in Queens on Monday confessed to police that she smoked crack cocaine around 1 or 2 a.m., did heroin around 9 a.m., and drank one alcoholic beverage around noon that same day. Sheila Bethea, 45, also admitted to speeding, and told police she did not know 5-year-olds needed to be in car seats. (None of her passengers were even wearing seat belts.) Perhaps even more devastating is the revelation that the children were supposed to taken to their foster care appointment in a cab.

Following a heroin delivery via electric toothbrush on Monday, Cameron Douglas has been taken out of his UES house arrest digs, and moved over to the Metropolitan Correctional Center. This is also where his girlfriend Kelly Sott is still being held, after making the delivery.

The mystery of how Cameron Douglas's girlfriend actually thought it was a good idea to bring heroin to his meeting with The Man becomes a little bit less mysterious now. The Daily News reports that Douglas was under house arrest in his mom's $9.25M Upper East Side townhouse when girlfriend Kelly Sott (pictured) delivered a toothbrush filled with 19 bags of heroin. A private security guard was suspicious when he heard Douglas on the phone talking about the toothbrush, as he had just gotten one—so when Sott showed up he confiscated it and found the drugs. (Wonder what was in that first toothbrush!) The DEA later arrested Sott at the Hotel Gansevoort where she was staying; "they found heroin, crystal meth and marijuana in her room. She was held without bail after her arrest, and a federal magistrate ordered immediate treatment for heroin addiction and hypertension." Both Sott and Douglas were reportedly strung out when this occurred.

Cameron Douglas is addicted to drugs... well, addicted to trafficking them! The 30-year-old son of Michael Douglas, and his first wife Diandra Luker, was recently busted for dealing crystal meth, and now his girlfriend is joining the club. The NY Post reports that Kelly Sott "was arrested after she tried to smuggle to him 10 bags of heroin—hidden in an electric toothbrush—right in front of prosecutors who are investigating him for drug trafficking." Douglas was in a meeting with the officials in Manhattan yesterday when he asked if he could call his girl to run an errand. Soon enough she was there with the toothbrush, which of course the officials were suspicious of and checked, and now she's being held without bail. Her lawyer said she's in need of treatment for a medical condition: "heroin addiction and hypertension."

In Naked Lunch, William Burroughs wrote that while on heroin he could stare at his shoe with rapt attention for hours on end. So it's fitting that the largest smack bust in Suffolk County history should involve footwear: Prosecutors announced today that the Suffolk County Heroin Task Force has seized 17 pounds of heroin found stashed inside plastic shoe insoles. Two unidentified New Jersey men were busted outside a Melville, NY hotel on July 25th. Officials say the powdered heroin was organized in small blocks in the insoles. An analysis has determined that the heroin is 85 to 90 percent pure and could have been divided into up to a half-million dosages, enough to make even the most boring pair of loafers look interesting for decades.

With lots of attention being drawn lately to the overdose of Dash Snow and the strung-out gutter punks in Williamsburg, DEA agents are confirming just what you'd expect—cheaper, more potent heroin is majorly on the rise around the Big Apple. One addiction specialist at Flushing Hospital says he's seen the number of addicts there quadruple over the last decade. The News took a closer look inside the Bronx drug dens that were part of a massive bust over July 4th weekend, spots where each kilo of heroin is broken into 30,000 tiny glassine envelopes, many of which were stuffed into Build-a-Bears. The home base of leader Jeffrey Alba's operation was "a poisonous death mill” inside a non-descript residential building on Broadway in Riverdale, just across from the baseball diamond of Kelly Field. Authorities say that they hadn't encountered an operation of this scope since heroin's heyday in the '70s, but now these are no longer covering small territories around town. An agent tells the News, "This [Riverdale] group was like a corporation, supplying the whole metropolitan area, Long Island, New Jersey."

Hey, the gutter punks are back in the News today. Still panhandling, still smelling, still shooting up... but this time the focus is on how their habits are driving business away from shopkeepers in the Williamsburg area. One deli owner on Bedford Avenue says not only are they shoplifting, but "people see them and get disgusted, and then people don't bother coming into my store. They could take a nice hot bath. One kid comes in and the whole store will be smelling for hours." Pretty sure the jacuzzi baths at the stalled luxury condos they squat in haven't been installed yet.

While Williamsburg sits stagnant in a confused state of purgatory, the abandoned and stalled luxury condos have become a haven for one group: the gutter punks. The Daily News gives the group a two-story treatment today, saying the "heroin-addict hobos from around the country are overrunning" the area. And as with every other newcomer to the Brooklyn neighborhood, they're hated by those who came before them.

[UPDATE BELOW] A not totally unsurprising rumor is going around that downtown artist Dash Snow has died of a heroin overdose. Snow is the maternal grandson of Robert Thurman (and nephew of actress Uma Thurman), and his lifestyle was well-documented in a sprawling New York magazine piece two years ago. That lifestyle at one point included making what he called a Hamster’s Nest with friends, where they would "shred up 30 to 50 phone books, yank around all the blankets and drapes, turn on the taps, take off their clothes, and do drugs—mushrooms, coke, ecstasy—until they feel like hamsters."

Actor Stephen Baldwin had invited a homeless man to live in the cottage on his Rockland County estate—and now that cops have arrested the man on heroin charges. Apparently Baldwin, aka the youngest Baldwin, met the 51-year-old Jimmy Parks who was living in a tent near a McDonald's in Central Nyack; Baldwin, a born-again Christian, offered him shelter at his home in Upper Grandview. However, police became suspicious after people started to head to the cottage—Parks was allegedly dealing drugs. State Police Capt. Joseph Tripodo said, "Mr. Baldwin didn't have anything to do with this. He's says he's deeply religious and tried to help the guy out. The guy was down on his luck and he loaned him some money and gave him a place to live." Related: The actor has recently been having some mortgage problems.

Build-a-Bear has made a name for itself over the last decade by letting passers-by take a bird's eye view of the their bears getting stuffed inside workshops around the country. But yesterday police caught up with a group of criminals in The Bronx who have been filling up the teddy bears with bags of heroin over the last year right under their unsuspecting neighbors' noses.

Last week, a man's body was found in a suitcase, at a park in Yonkers (the dead man's leg fell out of the suitcase when a park worker went to inspect). Now an autopsy has found that the man had 50 heroin packets in his body. Police think he died when one or two broke open. Westchester County police said that the street value of the drugs was about $100,000. They do not think the man was killed by drug dealers, since the dealers would "have cut his body open for drugs." A police spokesman said, "How he got to the park with the drugs still inside him is still piece of the puzzle."

A man died while trying to flee the dozens of federal agents who raided a heroin mill in a Castle Hill apartment. The man jumped from a 9th floor balcony to a 6th floor balcony, but "slammed his head against a sixth-floor railing." Two other women who tried to make the same jump were hospitalized.

Actress Tatum O'Neal hasn't kept her battles with addiction a secret, but just when things in her life seem to be on the straight and narrow, the NY Post is reporting she got busted buying crack and cocaine on the Lower East Side. Seems the neighborhood still has its drug roots, the addicts just have Oscars on their mantles now.

Authorities say 27-year-old driver of a Mercedes that fatally plowed into a 30-year-old woman crossing Brighton Beach Avenue over the weekend was on drugs at the time of arrest.

Three UPS employees and a fourth man were arrested earlier this week after police followed a package filled with heroin to a 29th St. address. The package had been identified as being filled with drugs at a UPS distribution hub in Kentucky.

Police broke up an Upper East Side heroin distribution center this week, located in the rarefied real estate of 75th St. between 2nd and 3rd Aves. Neighbors seemed shocked after police broke down the door of apartment 2B at 242 East 75th, a street unfamiliar with narcotics unit raids. One said, "I was leaving my apartment [and there was a] battering ram and there were cops, so I asked some questions and I found out what has happened. You don't know who your neighbors are in this city. You just never know."

New Jersey police have arrested a number of members of the Lucchese crime family. In the process of breaking up a multi-billion dollar betting organization, cops discovered that the old school mafia family had also teamed up with the more street-level gang the Bloods. The two groups were working together to smuggle things like iPods, cell phones, and drugs into the East Jersey State Prison. The betting ring was fairly sophisticated, utilizing Internet sites, an 800 phone line, and personal interaction to process more than $2 billion in wagers annually. The smuggling ring was facilitated by a corrections officer who worked at the prison.

An NYPD detective was arrested in the breaking up of a Bronx drug ring this week. The bust was comprehensive and prosecutors are alleging that officer James Calderon used his inside knowledge of police activities to enable crack and heroin dealers to operate with relative impunity. James Calderon was a 13-year veteran of the force, but is now being accused of acting as an agent for Jorge and Luis Mendoza, Bronx drug dealers who allegedly...

Two movies set in New York are coming out today, and both are getting a lot of press, promo and opined upon.

Queens prosecutors announced yesterday that a teenager acting as a drug mule was arrested at JFK airport on Tuesday. Anthony Cruz, 16, was stopped by customs officials as he arrived on an American Airlines flight from Santiago in the Dominican Republic. X-rays of his body revealed 80 balloons of heroin with a total weight of 988 grams (nearly 1 kilo and more than 2 pounds). According to officials, the heroin was worth $500,000.

Ah, City Councilman Peter "I hate graffiti" Vallone weighs in on the chalk "graffiti" made by 6-year-old Natalie Shea on her home's front stoop. Back in 2005, Vallone introduced the law that requires property owners to clean up graffiti, so when a neighbor called 311 to complain about Natalie's drawings (again, mind you, on her own stoop, not a neighbor's stoop), her parents got a warning letter from the Department of Sanitation.

Almost all of the 17-year-olds' stories make for interesting reading.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on York Ave. and Richmond Terr. on Staten Island, another pedestrian struck on 37th Ave. and Union St. in Queens, and a missing child on 12th Ave. in Brooklyn.
• Three teenagers were hospitalized after being stabbed immediately after school let out in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn yesterday afternoon. Two of the injured were also slashed in the face.
• The City is introducing a new public awareness campaign to help reduce accidents and fatalities of bicyclists in New York. "Avoiding a crash comes down to one simple action: LOOK," is the tag line that will appear on taxi roofs, bus stops, and phone booths.
• A murderer and her sugar daddy rapist victim finally receive headstones 150-odd years after being buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. "Never in my life have heard a story that incorporated so much dysfunction and sociopathic behavior between a man and woman."
• The New York City school district won the lion's share of the $1 million Broad Prize for proving to be "a model of successful urban school district reform." The $500,000 the district won will be distributed as scholarships to graduating students.
• Home foreclosures were up 30% year over year in New York City, with Brooklyn leading the way in people losing their homes. There were 1,032 foreclosures in the borough last month.
• A state appellate court overturned a New York man's conviction after he was arrested with a large quantity of heroin in his possession because the judge in his trial interfered excessively in the questioning of witnesses.
• A freelance photographer was shooting pictures in a garbage-strewn alley in Newark for a story about illegal dumping when he discovered the body of a dead woman wrapped in plastic. After reporting his find to Newark police he was questioned about his immigration status and had his camera confiscated when he admitted that his visa had expired.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a dead body in the water off of Houston St. on the west side of Manhattan, a shooting at Lincoln and Classon in Brooklyn, and a water rescue off Coney Island's Surf Ave. in Brooklyn.
• A young woman from upstate was crowned Miss New York last night. "An exhausted"-looking Miss NJ looked on, after two weeks of scandal and intrigue.
• Famed Central Park red tailed hawk Pale Male is fine after a construction worker pelted him while he was on his perch.
• Longtime area attraction at Rye Playland may never reopen.
• Remember searching for the prize in a cereal box? Cops found $100,000 stuffed in a box of Cap'n Cunch when they raided a Washington Heights heroin distribution center. They also found $12 million in drugs.
• City schools are operating with the assistance of lots of cash from private organizations and individuals.
• Aides to Governor Spitzer are fully aware of his anger management problems. He sees it as a problem-solving tool.
• Native Americans are getting involved in a sport that is mostly played by white affluent Americans: lacrosse, which was invented by Native Americans.

The Observer has an interesting piece on The New Victorians, who are apparently bringing monogomy and early adulthood back. To get a mental image, think: Michelle Williams and Heath Ledger in Boerum Hill, Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss in Park Slope and Liv Tyler and Royston Langdon in the West Village. A new breed of 20-somethings in the big city, and apparently this new regime is more into nesting than late nights.

MOVIE: Audrey Hepburn, a doll filled with heroin, Alan Arkin and the West Village in the 60s. What more could you ask for? Come check out Wait Until Dark tonight, but don't wait until dark to get there - the lawn fills up fast!

It's beginning to look a lot like...LA. The NY Sun reports on a new walk-in "Botox store" offering impatient patients a chance to take a dip in the artificial fountain of youth during their lunch break.

The Hotel Chelsea Blog explores theories about the hotel's most famous couple. This year marks the 29th anniversary of Nancy Spungen's death, who was murdered in room 100 of the legendary hotel. Since then, questions and rumors have surrounded her death - which was pinned on Sid Vicious.