BEST USE OF DRUG WINDFALL OFTEN A MATTER FOR DEBATE

(Mattapoisett) -- That this town of less than 7,000 has thousands of
dollars in forfeiture money is something of a fluke.

Most years, the town receives between $1,000 and $2,000 from its
regular drug arrests. But in the case of three South Africans,
Mattapoisett found its cash cow.

The three were part of an international drug ring that smuggled about
$40 million of Pakistani hashish into Point Judith, R.I., in 1983,
according to Mattapoisett Police Chief James F. Moran.

They rented a summer cottage in the West End beach area of
Mattapoisett, but moved to Little Compton, R.I., about two months
after Mattapoisett detectives began surveillance of the property.
Chief Moran's detectives contacted Little Compton with the
information, and continued to assist in the investigation for the next
few years.

In June 1988, Little Compton police arrested a New York man they said
was the kingpin of the operation. Eventually, 22 people were convicted
in connection with the international drug ring. The assets seized
resulted in the largest drug forfeiture in the country at the time,
according to the U.S. Justice Department.

The assets included shopping centers, farms, houses, and land in six
states and one foreign country; not to mention $5 million from a Hong
Kong bank and $11 million in Swiss bank accounts. To date, the overall
value of the assets has been placed at close to $80 million.

Westport and New Bedford, which both were involved in the
investigation, received shares as well. Other participating agencies
included Rhode Island police departments in Providence, Pawtucket, and
Warwick, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Little Compton, with nine officers and a half-dozen dispatchers making
up its entire police force, has received $3.9 million so far.

Mattapoisett's work was a small part in the overall investigation of
the international drug smuggling ring, but enough to net the police
department 5 percent of all assets seized as a result, or partial
result, of the town's work.

"Just look at what we've spent -- probably $160,000 to upgrade
ourselves and buy cruisers, without taxing the taxpayers one penny
- --that's how important it is," says Chief Moran. "It bought us
equipment we probably wouldn't have had if we hadn't had this windfall
of money from the drug dealers."

Mattapoisett received its first check from the U.S. attorney's office
for $78,700 on Jan. 28, 1992.

Since then, more money has trickled in as more assets were discovered
and seized, then sold off. Most recently, the town received $16,735 on
June 12, 1998.

"It's just a continuous type thing. Lo and behold, you open the mail
and you find another check," the chief said.

Chief Moran was criticized at a recent Town Meeting for asking for
taxpayer funds to help pay for replacing a cruiser. But he said he did
not have enough money in the forfeiture fund at the time to pay for
the cruiser.

Otherwise, there has been little friction in Mattapoisett over the
drug forfeiture money, he said.

For Little Compton, the forfeiture money has been both a blessing and
a curse.

By statute, the use of drug forfeiture money by a police department is
at the chief's discretion, but must be for law enforcement purposes.

But many others in Little Compton felt a sense of entitlement to the
windfall.

"We have groups who say 'Will you build a snack bar for the Little
League?' and when you have to turn them down, then they get angry,"
said Little Compton Detective Capt. Ron Coffey.

Little Compton Police Chief Egbert D. Hawes Jr. tried to be flexible
with his spending, justifying new parking signs as a public safety
expense; purchasing a wood chipper to clean up trees that fall over
roadways; and paying for a new municipal fuel tank because, among
others, police use it to fill up their cruisers.

He even funded the town's $3,000 Fourth of July fireworks, justifying
it as a crime prevention measure.

But when some requests were rejected, people complained to the U.S.
attorney's office.

The complaint backfired.

Instead of forcing the chief to be more liberal with his spending, an
audit by the U.S. attorney's office determined he had to be more
conservative. The office ruled some of the forfeiture expenditures
would have to be refunded, including the fireworks, wood chipper, and
fuel tank.

Still, despite the bickering, the money has been crucial to the
department.

"We just went through a six-week homicide investigation and that's
where the funds came from," Capt. Coffey said, referring to the
investigation into the murder of Angela Spence-Shaw. Fall River's
Jeremy Motyka has been charged with murder in that case.

Drug money paid for DNA testing, telephone records, overtime, and
other facets of the investigation, Capt. Coffey said.

The town now requires Town Council approval for the chief's forfeiture
expenditures. In addition, in 1992, the Rhode Island Superior Court
required Town Meeting approval for any yearly spending in excess of
$150,000.

That decision turned out to be for the best, Capt. Coffey
said.

"Now we don't have everybody coming, saying, 'Can we have this, can we
have that?'" he said. "Now, it's strictly law enforcement, and that's
it."

Most recently, with town approval, the Police Department agreed to pay
$1 million toward a new $2.2 million combined police and fire building
for the town.

"We had people refer to it as blood money and say 'We don't want it,'"
Capt. Coffey said.

"But that's the way the law was set up, and what are we going to say,
we don't want the money? There are a lot of people happy now that they
don't have to pay an extra million dollars for a new Fire and Police
Department facility."