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.

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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.