Pubdate: Sun, 10 Apr 2005
Source: Telegraph (NH)
Copyright: 2005 Telegraph Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.nashuatelegraph.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/885

THE BIG BUST

Lines In The Sand

Operation Beachhead Started Small.

People were dealing drugs on the streets and in bars around Hampton
Beach. Other people noticed, and complained to police about it.

The Hampton Police Department's effort to tackle this routine
community problem about five years ago soon expanded into one of the
largest drug investigations ever conducted in the Nashua region.

State and local police worked with federal agents and prosecutors, and
what started as two separate cases merged into tandem investigations
involving at least four distinct drug-supply chains.

In the end, more than 15 people were convicted on federal drug charges
and 29 people were arrested on state charges, most of whom were
convicted, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Irish said.

The government also seized more than $1 million in assets from
dealers, who lost homes, luxury cars, high-end motorcycles and loads
of cash.

The dealers police identified were mainly men in their 40s and 50s,
many of them natives or longtime residents of Nashua and area towns.

They were well established and widely known - and not just as dope
dealers - in their communities. They worked at or ran local
businesses. Some are married, and have children in the local schools.
Many had known each other since they were children, and some had
dabbled or dealt in drugs since high school.

"I've never seen a group (of dealers) last that long (without getting
caught), ever," Irish said. "They were very low-profile.

"There were a couple reasons these people stayed in business for as
long as they did. One, they dealt with who they knew, who they
trusted, but I think the second reason was their cocaine was pretty
good."

Police had known about Michael Gingras and some of the other suspected
dealers for years, Nashua Detective Sgt. Fred Nichols said. They just
hadn't been able to do anything about it.

"We couldn't get anywhere near him," Nichols said. "A lot of the
people he was dealing with, they all went to high school together."

The investigation began with information police gathered from about a
dozen confidential informants. Based on those tips and their own
surveillance, police got warrants to tap four telephones.

Simultaneously, investigators started combing through the financial
records of suspects, determining how much money changed hands and
where it went.

In the end, police identified and brought charges against people
involved with four drug-supply chains, three involving cocaine and one
moving marijuana. Police identified several other alleged dealers, but
couldn't muster enough evidence to bring charges.

Police generally weren't able to track traffickers higher up the
supply chain, beyond local dealers, because defendants were either
unable or unwilling to identify them.

None of the law enforcement agencies involved in Operation Beachhead
and the related Operation Jumbalaya were able or willing to estimate
their expenses for the investigation. It's clear from court records,
however, that the investigation required several thousands of hours of
work by federal, state and local law enforcement officers over the
course of about four years.

Two of the largest agencies involved in the investigation, New
Hampshire State Police and the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration, refused to make investigators or their supervisors
available for interviews or to provide any information to The Telegraph.

The agencies' involvement in the case is outlined, to great extent, in
the affidavits officers filed in various courts to get permission to
tap telephones and search some 20 homes and businesses.

All of the defendants charged in federal court declined to speak with
The Telegraph.

Nashua and Hampton police allowed their lead investigators in the case
to be interviewed, and prosecutors with the U.S. attorney's office
also spoke with reporters.

Drugs at the beach

Hampton is a small town of fewer than 20,000 permanent residents, but
its population swells during the summer with boaters and beachniks.

As the summer tourist tide ebbs, winter brings lower-income, transient
residents attracted by cheap, off-season rentals.

Small-time drug dealers came to cater to both the summer and winter
crowds, Hampton police Lt. Daniel Gidley said. Gidley had been
concerned about drugs since he earned his detective's shield in 1998,
he said.

"I increasingly saw a lot of our cases - you know, theft cases,
assault cases - always seemed to have a drug tie to them," he said.

A tuna boom in the mid-1990s may also have helped feed demand among
newly rich local fishermen, Gidley said.

"There was a lot of money flowing. There was a lot of talk here about
a lot of drugs being sold," he said.

Hampton police don't have their own drug division, and a few years
ago, they didn't have any undercover or plainclothes officers, Gidley
said. Gidley reckoned they would need help, and it turned out the Drug
Enforcement Administration's Mobile Enforcement Team was available.

"It was just a matter of making a request," he said.

Officers from the DEA, Hampton police, state police and the Attorney
General's Drug Task Force gathered in July 2000 to begin planning the
investigation and share what they already knew, Gidley said.

"At the very beginning, our investigation was concentrated right here
on the Seacoast, at the beach," Gidley said. "We were looking at a lot
of the low-level dealers that were making the day trips to Hampton to
sell drugs to the crowds of people."

Police knew dealers were selling on certain streets and around the
Casino Ballroom. Several bars in town - Wally's Pub, La Bec Rouge and
the Sunset Cafe - also seemed to be hot spots, Gidley said. So police
started watching those areas, he said.

Police identified and eventually arrested several local Hampton
dealers, but they soon discovered a fair amount of the cocaine washing
up on Hampton Beach was coming from Nashua, Gidley said.

"This had been going on for three, four, five years where there was a
Nashua-Hampton connection," Gidley said.

Police had some idea as to what and whom they were looking for, of
course. Early in the investigation, police gathered up information
gleaned from a dozen informants. Most were convicted drug dealers who
traded information for leniency for their own crimes, but a few simply
volunteered to help. At least one informant was paid for
information.

Among the most valuable was a person identified in state police Sgt.
Robert Quinn's first wiretap affidavit as "CI#1." Police generally are
careful to avoid identifying informants, or even citing gender.

CI#1 began working with police after being arrested for drug dealing
in 1998, Quinn wrote. CI#1 told police about numerous people dealing
cocaine and marijuana in the Nashua area, and bought marijuana from a
dealer in Rochester under police supervision, Quinn wrote.

CI#1 also gave police information that led to the arrest of a Nashua
couple, John and Tracy Marshall, and several associates, who were
convicted of moving copious amounts of marijuana.

CI#1 had no obligation or incentive to continue working with police
beyond the Marshall case, but agreed to provide information about
Gingras and various other alleged dealers on the condition of
anonymity, Quinn wrote.

CI#1 claimed to have known Gingras, Bruce Brouillard, Greg Wheeler and
other people named in the investigation for roughly 20 years. The
informant's information suggests CI#1 was close with them from the
mid-1980s through the early 1990s, but didn't have any more current
information.

Gingras' lawyers later identified a man they believe to have been CI#1
and argued he was a chronic alcoholic and drug user who couldn't be
trusted to tell the truth. The prosecutors' response to that
identification of the informant remains sealed.

Other informants named Allen James Grisson as a significant supplier
of cocaine, mainly to a crowd that frequented Wally's Pub in Hampton.
Several cited Michael Dignam as a dealer who got cocaine from Grisson,
and Gingras was named as someone who seemed close to Grisson. Several
informants told police they believed Gingras dealt cocaine, but none
could offer any firsthand evidence to back their suspicions.

Samuel Bellavance of Hollis was mentioned often, too, as a companion
of Gingras or Grisson.

Tough surveillance

Focusing on that crowd, police started stalking their quarry in July
2000, Quinn stated in his wiretap affidavit.

Gingras and Bellavance had a 30-foot fishing boat, the Bud Man, docked
at Hampton River Marina, and spent a great deal of time on the coast.
Brouillard rented a home at 131 Ocean Drive in Seabrook in August
2000, and Grisson was staying at the Nautical Motel in Hampton, within
walking distance of Wally's Pub.

Police began to see a great many suspiciously brief meetings, but they
quickly found that the men they were watching were keeping an eye out
for them, too.

On July 20, 2000, police saw Dignam waiting by the Hampton River
Marina gas pumps on his motorcycle. After 25 minutes, Grisson,
Bellavance and an unidentified man arrived on Bud Man, spoke with
Dignam and docked.

The four men walked to the nearby Sunset Bar and Grill, where some
undercover officers were hanging out. The officers noted Grisson and
Dignam looked hard at them.

Officers watching from outside the bar saw Bellavance walk into the
parking lot and scan the various cars parked outside. The undercover
officers opted to leave rather than continue to raise suspicion.

Bellavance later settled a forfeiture claim, but was never criminally
charged in the case.

The following week, undercover officers started to drop by Wally's Pub
and make small talk with patrons. Eventually, an undercover officer
and an informant tried to buy cocaine there.

A friend of Dignam's told the two he didn't know or trust the officer,
and didn't think Dignam had any cocaine. Dignam also told them he had
no cocaine. While the informant and officer were inside, one of the
bar's owners and another man spotted police on surveillance outside
and waved at them, Quinn wrote. Police later learned the bar's owner
also took photographs of the vehicle police were using for
surveillance that day.

At least two informants tried to buy cocaine from Gingras, but both
times Gingras steered them toward Grisson, Quinn reported.

Gingras also was an unusually careful driver, Quinn reported.
Following Gingras on Aug. 29, 2000, officers reported Gingras seemed
to check his mirrors frequently, and twice pulled over for no apparent
reason, allowing other cars to pass him. After the second time,
Gingras made a U-turn and doubled back. Officers decided to stop
following him rather than risk being seen.

"Physical surveillance has proven to be extremely difficult and
risky," Quinn wrote later in his affidavit for the first phone taps.

"The counter-surveillance actions of Gingras and Dignam have made it
impossible to determine such key elements of prosecution such as stash
locations, customers, sources of supply, and their methods for
laundering the proceeds from drug trafficking."

Despite such precautions, police witnessed numerous meetings that they
were certain must have been drug deals.

On Aug. 17, police saw Brouillard drive his white Chrysler LeBaron
convertible into the marina, where he met Gingras. Gingras looked
around, spoke with Brouillard, then went to his Jeep Cherokee, looked
around some more and got a bag, which he tossed into Brouillard's car.
Brouillard drove off, and Gingras strolled down the dock toward Bud
Man.

Police also saw similarly brief meetings between Gingras and several
other men, sometimes in parking lots near Gingras' business.

Surveillance is time-consuming and tedious, police say. Police work in
pairs, so they can keep continuous watch, even when nature calls.

"You're talking about hundreds of hours . . . if not thousands of
hours," said Nichols, the Nashua sergeant.

"Your day could start at 6 in the morning and not end until 2 in the
morning," Nichols said. "You spend a lot of time in the car. It's your
home, really. . . . Fast food makes a killing off us."

Cars are the ideal cover - mobile and ubiquitous.

"You want to be invisible," Nichols said. Although hiding in plain
sight, "You just look like the other hundred or thousand cars."

"We just set up surveillance and see where it leads us," Nichols said.
"You're sitting in the car, and you're just waiting, waiting and then
all of a sudden here he goes. That's the fun part, because at least
you're moving."

Police keep their distance while following a person, and it's also
important to know the area, Nichols said.

"You've got to know, if he takes a left onto a dead-end street, not to
go down that dead end with them," Nichols said.

Well-placed informant

Around the same time Operation Beachhead began, officers in the Nashua
Police Narcotics Investigations Unit decided they had heard enough
about Richard Stoddard.

Police had arrested Stoddard in 1995 after an informant bought cocaine
from him several times. Police raided his home and found a small
amount of cocaine, a scale and other evidence. Stoddard pleaded guilty
to possession and got a suspended sentence, and before long, police
began to hear he was back in business.

"A lot of people were getting arrested and were saying he's a big
dealer," Nichols said.

Police dubbed their investigation into Stoddard and his associates
"Operation Jumbalaya," using the name of a Nashua restaurant that
Stoddard seemed to favor.

In the spring of 2000, police were investigating a dealer who proved
to be one of Stoddard's customers, Philip Francoeur. An undercover
detective bought cocaine from one of Francoeur's associates in June,
and on Aug. 29, police followed Francoeur and another dealer to the
parking lot of Soucy's Market, where they met with Stoddard.

Police could see that Stoddard was dealing, but they didn't have an
undercover officer or informant who could get close to him, Nichols
said.

"That situation with Stoddard, it was pure luck," Nichols said. "We
were considering a wiretap, because we knew how busy he was, but
that's when the CI (confidential informant) came in."

On Sept. 1, 2000, Nashua police detectives arrested someone - they
won't divulge the informant's gender - on charges of receiving stolen
property and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Hoping to
wriggle out of a mandatory three-year prison sentence on the firearms
charge, the felon offered to tell police whatever he could about crime
in the city.

Among other things, the informant told of cocaine dealings, and
mentioned Stoddard, Sharpshooter Billiards and its owner, Francis
Calaguiro, Nichols said. Police had heard it all before, but this
person was willing and able to buy cocaine at Sharpshooter's while
working with police and wearing a wire.

The informant did so nine times from October through December of 2000,
buying increasingly larger amounts, first from Grisson, then from
Calaguiro and finally from Stoddard.

Just weeks after selling cocaine to the informant, however, Stoddard
somehow got wind of the investigation and fled the state with his
girlfriend, Marcia West. They took up residence in Quincy, Mass.,
using the names "Rick Balsam" and "Marie Burner," and weren't seen in
Nashua again for several months.

The cocaine sales to the informant would have been sufficient to bring
charges, but police didn't want to tip their hand yet.

Tapping phones, grabbing trash

The federal agents, as well as Nashua, Hampton and state police,
started working together in the fall of 2000, Nichols said.

The Nashuans identified in Operation Beachhead spent a great deal of
time in Hampton Beach in the summer, but as winter approached, they
stayed closer to home.

Police gathered the information they had gleaned and began working
with the U.S. attorney's office to draft an affidavit to get
permission to tap several telephones: Gingras' cellular phone,
Grisson's home phone and Dignam's home phone. Preparing the
applications for the wiretaps took months, but they got a judge's
approval to start tapping those phones on Feb. 22, 2001.

The warrant was good for a month, but police got it extended twice,
and the third warrant, issued April 27, 2001, added a cellular phone
used by Alfred "Alfie" Nickerson, whom they had learned was supplying
Grisson.

It didn't take long for the taps to pay off. Once police began
listening, they were able to combine what they heard with what they
saw and gather more solid evidence of drug dealing.

"We had a surveillance team that was in place that was a reactionary
team," Quinn testified during the trial of dealer Nelson Santana.
"They were there daily, prepared to move in a certain location as
directed by somebody working in the wire room."

On Feb. 23, 2001, at about 12:48 p.m., Gingras called an employee of
Skip's Marine in Nashua. The man told Gingras he was "ready," but had
to get to his credit union. When Gingras mentioned he was leaving town
for a week, the man asked him to bring "three of those tires, instead
of two," and promised he'd have cash.

Almost an hour later, the two spoke again, and agreed to meet at
Skip's Marine. At 1:51 p.m., police saw Gingras drive into the parking
lot there, get out of his car and walk inside. He stayed fewer then 10
minutes, and the only tires he carried were those on his Jeep Grand
Cherokee.

No one ever used the word "cocaine" during conversations police heard,
their records indicate. Dealers used various euphemisms, sometimes
seemingly invented on the fly. In one conversation, Gingras spoke with
an associate, Michael Close, about wanting a quart of oil for his
Jeep, and proposed meeting Close in Manchester. Another customer told
Gingras he was looking for "a whole pool game," most likely meaning an
ounce of cocaine; one-eighth of an ounce of cocaine is often referred
to as an "eight ball."

Police continued their surveillance, listening as suspects made
arrangements by phone, then met to complete the deals. For the most
part, however, police were never able to figure out where the suspects
were stashing drugs when they had large amounts.

One trick they tried was to pick through suspects' trash. Police
simply get out early in the morning, grab trash left outside a house,
bring it back to the police station and comb through it.

"It's not the nicest job. You've got to have a strong stomach for it,"
Nichols said.

Police hope to find telltale clues to corroborate suspicions of drug
dealing - baggies or wrappings with drug residue, mail identifying the
occupants of a residence, and often, notes outlining drug
transactions. Drug dealers don't tend to keep formal business records,
Nichols said, but most do keep some written record of their dealings.

"There's very few of them that can keep records in their heads," he
said.

Typical information may include simply names or nicknames, dates and
sums of money. Dealers often will tally their expenses and revenues to
figure their profit.

"It's not like your phone bill or your electric bill. . . . A lot of
times it's on the back of an envelope or a torn-up piece of paper,"
Nichols said. "It's something they calculate very quickly and just
throw it away."

The state Supreme Court has since restricted police from searching
trash without a warrant, but in this investigation, it proved
ineffective in any case.

The suspects apparently were protective of their privacy and cagey
about their garbage.

Garbage taken from a Dumpster outside Gingras' business turned out to
belong to someone from another town, and similarly, when police took
trash from in front of another suspected dealer's home, they found it
belonged to neighbors several doors down.

Police once spotted a large load by the curb outside Gingras' home,
but it appeared someone was up and about in the house. Other weeks,
Gingras had no trash to take.

Grisson never seemed to put his trash out, Quinn reported, and
surveillance showed he sometimes brought trash with him when he left
his house.

Twenty searches

After several months of listening and looking, police made their first
arrest May 9, 2001. They nabbed Nickerson after a meeting with his
cocaine supplier, Santana. Nickerson was flush with cocaine and
marijuana, but police kept it quiet. Detectives spoke with Nickerson
and searched his home, but let him go without filing charges after
Nickerson agreed to tell them what he knew.

Later that month, prosecutors began filing drug-forfeiture cases in
federal court, first against Nickerson and some of his associates,
then against Stoddard and Calaguiro, and finally against Gingras,
Brouillard and other associates.

Police also drafted search warrants, and on June 4, about 40 officers
gathered in the Nashua Police Department's training room.

"We had a huge briefing," Nichols said. "We pulled all our resources
together."

Police had warrants to search 20 homes and businesses in Nashua,
Bedford, Litchfield, Hampton and Hollis. Officers were assigned to
teams, one for each location, and each team was briefed on the
location, target of the search and what they might hope to find.

Police were looking mainly for paraphernalia and records associated
with drug dealing, although of course they wouldn't ignore any actual
drugs they found. The searches were to be done in a relatively
low-key, "knock-and-announce" style, rather than commando-style raids.

Police raided Gingras' home and business place and found a large
plastic bag with cocaine residue inside a safe at his home at 8 Broad
St. in Nashua. They found small amounts of cocaine at Wheeler's home
at 127 Pinecrest Road in Litchfield, and about three pounds of
marijuana in Close's Contoocook home.

They found $24,000 in a filing cabinet at RJ's Motorsport, and owner
Roger Pageot admitted the money was proceeds from his marijuana business.

At other homes, police seized mainly records of bank accounts and
other assets, to help with forfeiture cases.

Police already had searched Stoddard's home at that point, and they
didn't go after Santana until months later, knowing he had been tipped
off to the investigation soon after Nickerson's arrest.

Stoddard and Santana were the only dealers with reputations for
thuggish behavior. After Santana learned Nickerson had been caught,
Nickerson was warned he wouldn't be safe anywhere if he cooperated
with police.

Stoddard's ex-girlfriend received a death threat before being called
to testify before the federal grand jury. It may have been just an
intimidation tactic, Nichols said, "but we always take these things
seriously, because you never know."

Police began making arrests soon after the June 4 raids, nabbing
Pageot's marijuana supplier and another dealer, Timothy Bishop of
Windham, who arranged to buy 24 pounds of pot from Pageot.

Stoddard was arrested on a federal warrant Oct. 18, 2001, as he sat
down to dinner at the 99 Restaurant in Nashua. He was held without
bail, and later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison.

Calaguiro negotiated a plea bargain before he was charged, admitting
to drug dealing and tax evasion.

On April 10, 2002, prosecutors got indictments against Gingras,
Brouillard, Grisson and Santana on various cocaine charges. All of
them have since been convicted and sentenced to prison.
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