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veggie
Reged: 07/25/04
Posts: 6500
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Biggest seizure of psilocybin in the task force's 23-year history [MA]
06/23/06 05:14 AM
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Sawin faces new drug bust
June 23, 2006 - berkshireeagle.com
PITTSFIELD — Kyle W. Sawin, whom the commonwealth twice failed to convict of selling marijuana to an undercover police officer in a controversial Great Barrington drug sweep of two years ago, was arrested by the Berkshire County Drug Task Force on Wednesday and charged with numerous drug distribution offenses.
Sawin, 19, of Lebanon Mountain Road, Hancock, was also found in possession of a bag containing just under one pound of psilocybin mushrooms worth approximately $4,000, according to law enforcement authorities.
It is the biggest single seizure of the hallucinogenic drug psilocybin in the task force's 23-year history.
He was also found with a quantity of marijuana when he was arrested in Sheffield, authorities said.
Sawin has been charged with three counts of distribution of marijuana, one count of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, one count of distribution of psilocybin mushrooms, one count of possession of psilocybin with intent to distribute, and one count of being a minor transporting alcoholic beverages.
Sawin was released on $500 bail, pending arraignment in Southern Berkshire District Court in Great Barrington on Monday.
It is alleged that Sawin sold marijuana in Great Barrington on June 18; marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms in Stockbridge on June 20, and marijuana in Sheffield on June 21.
Further criminal complaints against Sawin for distribution and possession of both marijuana and other drugs will be filed in Central Berkshire District Court in Pittsfield. Those complaints are in connection to a drug transaction that occurred at Sawin's residence in Hancock on June 16, and a search of that same residence on Wednesday.
Sawin's arrest followed a six-day investigation by the county's drug task force, but it came on the same day that his former attorney, Judith C. Knight, officially announced her candidacy for the Democratic Party's nomination for Berkshire County District Attorney. In the Democratic Party primary on Sept. 19, Knight will oppose incumbent District Attorney David F. Capeless, whose first-time drug offender prosecutions she has criticized.
Knight, who no longer represents Sawin, termed the timing of Sawin's arrest a "remarkable coincidence."
"I don't know what to make of it," she said yesterday.
Sawin was one of seven first-time drug offenders among the 17 Berkshire County residents who were arrested in the Great Barrington drug bust of 2004. The investigation generated a tremendous amount of controversy after Capeless announced his intention to prosecute the first-time offenders for selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school or park, a charge that carries a minimum mandatory two-year jail sentence.
Capeless' decision spawned the formation of Concerned Citizens for Appropriate Justice, a citizen's group based in Great Barrington that opposes the district attorney's policy of pursuing the school-zone charge. CCAJ member John Whalan is Knight's campaign manager.
Reached in Worcester yesterday, where he was attending a court hearing, Capeless declined to comment on Sawin's arrest.
Sawin, the first of the Great Barrington defendants to go to trial, was charged with three counts of distribution of marijuana and three school-zone charges. His first trial in July 2005 ended in a mistrial. The commonwealth elected to retry Sawin on the same charges two months later, but that time he was acquitted.
CCAJ member Peter Greer called the arrest a "real tragedy for the Sawin family." Greer said he believed that if the district attorney's office had given Sawin the option of undergoing treatment or performing community service — instead of pursuing an "all-or- nothing approach" at trial, where acquittal or a two-year jail sentence were the only options — that "this sad day may not have come to pass."
The CCAJ has always advocated for "appropriate justice," Greer said, saying that those arrested should be "held responsible," but given "appropriate punishments."
"It didn't happen here," Greer said. "If it did we wouldn't be in the position that we are in today."
Knight said that she was "heartbroken" when she heard that Sawin had been arrested again because she cares deeply for his family.
"It does not change my resolve to work towards a better way to address people with substance abuse problems and give them the tools that they need to get back into society and stay clean," she added.
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