Pubdate: Sun, 13 Jun 2010
Source: Post-Standard, The (Syracuse, NY)
Copyright: 2010 Advance Publications
Contact: http://www.syracuse.com/mailforms/opinion/index.ssf
Website: http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/686
Author: Jim O'Hara
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption - United States)

PROSECUTORS DETAIL TEEN DRUG RING RUN BY FORMER SYRACUSE COP

It began around the end of the school year last June  with teenagers 
hanging around a former Syracuse police  officer's home to smoke 
cigarettes and marijuana.

The number of youths hanging around the Camillus home  began to grow. 
His vehicle was like a magnet attracting  teens for short encounters.

Neighbors and police began to take notice.

Before long, the former law enforcement officer was  running an 
organized drug ring with kids ranging in age  from 13 to 17. Kids 
were both buyers and sellers. Some  teens working for him phoned in 
orders for marijuana to  deliver to their peers. A few were trusted 
enough for  the ex-cop to front them drugs to sell as they saw 
fit  with the proceeds eventually turned in to him.

During last summer's State Fair, he daily sent a team  through the 
fairgrounds to make drug sales. He dropped  them off in the morning, 
their pockets stuffed with  drugs to walk the fairgrounds making 
sales. He'd pick  them up later in the day to collect the profits.

But the trafficking operation was short-lived. It came  crashing down 
after one youth told police how the  ex-cop had provided him 
cigarettes and marijuana. A  raid on the former officer's home Sept. 
24 turned up a  small amount of marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms 
and landed him in jail.

That's the story prosecutors say they  plan to prove as they move 
forward with a 46-count  indictment handed down last month against 
former  Syracuse police Officer Fredrick J. Baunee, 49, of 311 
Westfall St. The youths are not being charged due to  their ages, 
prosecutors said.

The May 5 indictment identifies 11 youths as  participants in 
Baunee's ring. Prosecutors say they  don't know how much drugs were 
sold or how many youths  were involved. They suspect more teens were involved.

Baunee was scheduled to be back in court Friday for a  conference 
between the lawyers and Onondaga County  Judge Anthony Aloi. But 
defense lawyer Paul Carey  cancelled the appearance after receiving a 
letter  indicating the prosecution is not offering any deals.  With 
the prosecution seeking a state prison sentence  and Baunee's 
registration as a sex offender, the case  appears headed for trial, Carey said.

How it worked

Senior Assistant District Attorney Michael Ferrante and  Assistant 
District Attorney Cindi Newtown, in separate  interviews, provided 
the following account of the ring:

It appears to have begun last June with youths who knew  Baunee's teenage son.

"They'd be at sporting events, school functions,  parties and someone 
would ask if anyone knew where they  could get some marijuana," 
Newtown said. "The answer  was always Fred or one of the kids he had 
selling for  him."

Baunee made some drug sales himself. "They were almost  entirely to 
kids," she said. But a lot of the  trafficking was done by the youths.

Teenagers working for Baunee would take requests from  other youths, 
call Baunee to order the drugs and he  would go wherever they wanted 
to meet and supply the  drugs for his sellers to deliver. The 
proceeds would  then be returned to Baunee.

The teenagers were selling marijuana at $10 for a gram  and $15 for a 
gram and a half. Some were given a larger  amount of marijuana to 
sell as they wanted, giving  Baunee the money when the drugs were 
sold, Newtown  said.

"He only trusted a select few," Ferrante said.

The young sellers were sometimes provided money and  sometimes drugs 
as compensation. "If they sold a  certain amount they'd get a certain 
amount for their  own use," Newtown said.

Baunee took his business on the road to places such as  the 
fairgrounds or a pizzeria, prosecutors said.

Broken windows

"They worked every day at the state fair," Ferrante said.

After employees at Pacino's Pizzeria in Camillus foiled  an attempted 
drug deal between two youths, the West  Genesee Street business's 
windows were broken,  authorities said. "I understand the manager saw 
a bag  of pot. He told him to leave," owner Steve Dann  recalled.

A short time later, an irate Baunee showed up, claiming  he was a 
police officer, Dann said. "I don't know what  he was screaming 
about. He was just screaming," Dann  said.

About a week later, Baunee drove six youths to the shop  the night of 
Sept. 2 to retaliate, the prosecution  contends. Baunee and four 
youths threw rocks through  the windows while two remained in his 
truck, Newtown  said.

The next morning, Dann got a call from the police  telling him that 
two windows, worth a total of $600,  were broken. Police at the time 
were unaware of the  link to the Baunee drug ring, Newtown said.

Sex abuse alleged

Baunee's crimes are not limited to drug sales,  prosecutors say. 
Baunee is accused of touching two boys  in a sexual manner while they 
were asleep, Newtown  said. The 15-year-old boys were spending the 
night at  Baunee's during a sleepover, she said.

Newtown said it took some time before the two  teenagers, identified 
as getting drugs from Baunee,  admitted to being victims of sexual 
abuse. It's  difficult for 15-year-old boys to admit to having had 
sexual contact with a man, she said. Given that all the  youths 
involved in the Baunee investigation attended  the same school and 
hung out together, the sex abuse  victims were concerned about the 
stigma associated with  such conduct, the prosecutor said.

Newtown said Baunee's crimes continued while he was in  jail. He is 
accused of tampering with a witness in  February or March: He tried 
to get a youth to not  cooperate with police or testify in the grand 
jury,  authorities say.

The indictment also accuses Baunee of using "family  members" to try 
to collect drug proceeds. Ferrante said  that also occurred while he 
was in jail. The relatives  may not have known the debts were from 
drug sales,  Ferrante said.

The neighborhood

There were no teens hanging around Baunee's home during  three recent 
visits to Westfall Street. Baunee's  one-story, ranch-style home sits 
on a 50-foot by  125-foot lot just one house away from the street's 
dead  end. There's an above-ground pool in the backyard.

At the dead end, a pathway leads into the woods where  authorities 
said Baunee and the youths hung out.

The suspicious neighbors, who kick-started the  investigation of the 
drug ring, declined comment. One  neighbor, who did not wish to be 
identified, said  neighbors wouldn't talk to a reporter because they 
don't want to do anything that would jeopardize the  case and return 
Baunee to the neighborhood.

Camillus Police Chief Thomas M. Winn, who referred to  some of the 
youths as victims, also declined comment.

- ---

[sidebar]

Fredrick J. Baunee

Fredrick J. Baunee began his career as a police officer March 31, 
1989. He was in the same police academy class as Police Chief Frank 
Fowler, who declined to comment on Baunee.

He was in the news in October 1994 when he was struck in the neck 
with a Mountain Dew soda bottle thrown through the open window of his 
patrol car in the parking lot of the Boys & Girls Club on East 
Fayette Street. Baunee suffered a cut neck and a concussion.

Baunee was accused in May 2007 of providing alcohol to a 14-year-old 
boy as they rode around in Baunee's private vehicle. The boy also 
said Baunee rubbed his hand on the boy's leg and face.

Baunee was suspended. He retired from the Syracuse Police Department 
in June 2007 while the case was pending.

He testified at trial he did not provide the boy any alcohol and did 
not know how the youth got intoxicated. A jury of six women found him 
guilty in April 2008 of endangering the welfare of a child. Syracuse 
City Judge Kate Rosenthal sentenced him to three years on probation.

Baunee admitted that his arrest on the Camillus charges amounted to a 
violation of his probation in that earlier case. Rosenthal last month 
sentenced him to the time he had served in jail since being arrested 
on the Camillus charges.

Baunee receives an annual pension of $49,315, according to state records.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom