PROSECUTOR FIGHTING DRUG RULING

TOMS RIVER -- The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office wants the state Supreme
Court to decide whether people arrested in Shore clubs with designer drugs
- - who have no prior arrests - deserve a break.

Millard's office has filed documents to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider
an appellate court decision earlier this month that upheld a decision by
Superior Court Judge Peter J. Giovine to allow a Bergen County man into a
diversionary program.

Darren M. Cray, 28, Lyndhurst, has been charged with possession of Ecstasy
and possession with the intent to distribute it June 18, 2000, in Seaside
Heights.

Cray and his lawyer, John J. Bruno Jr., had argued to Giovine in April that
Cray should be allowed into the county's pretrial intervention program, a
diversionary program that allows first-time nonviolent offenders to
complete a supervised program without having to admit guilt.

If they successfully complete the program, charges against them are dropped.

Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Robert W. Scott II argued that designer
or party drugs are reaching near-epidemic levels at the Shore, and that
many of the dealers come to Ocean County to push their drugs on willing
tourists.

Scott also referred to a recent documentary on MSNBC that explored the
Shore connection to Ecstasy.

"That is a very important thing, to attack the amount of people bringing
these drugs into the club scene and causing problems," Scott said in April.

Scott said admitting Cray into the PTI program would "send the wrong
message to people dealing drugs in Seaside Heights. Seaside Heights is
almost deemed to be a zone where anything goes. That attitude has got to be
changed."

Giovine maintained that each candidate needed to be judged individually.

Further, Giovine said, the amount of Ecstasy Cray is accused of possessing
raises questions about whether he was really dealing the drugs. At the time
of his arrest, he had 12 pills and about $136 in his pocket.

In the summer, Ecstasy can sell at the Shore for between $15 and $40 a
pill, generally averaging in Ocean County at $20 a pill.

Giovine said Cray's rejection was based on a general policy by the
prosecutor's office to refuse entry into PTI particularly to "nonresidents"
of Seaside Heights arrested with Ecstasy.

When Cray was arrested outside Temptations nightclub, he insisted the drugs
were for his own use, court records show.

The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether it will hear the case.