CAMPUS COP GETS 14 YEARS FOR PUSHING ECSTASY AND METH

A federal judge in Atlanta sentenced a campus cop to 14 years in
prison Friday for his role in a drug distribution ring that reached
from Atlanta to Boston.

Richard Trong Ong, 37, was a police officer at Suffolk University in
Boston when he distributed 20,000 methamphetamine-laced ecstasy
tablets to co-conspirators, said U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.
He was arrested in 2005 at his suburban Boston home after agents
seized the pills.

An Atlanta jury convicted the Quincy, Mass. man in August after a
week-long trial on conspiracy drug distribution charges. He was the
last of two dozen co-conspirators to be sentenced in the case.

His supplier, a Canadian named Chiem Mach, moved to Atlanta in 2004 to
lead a smuggling outfit that imported hundreds of thousands of ecstasy
pills from Canada to Atlanta, Yates said. Mach was arrested in 2005
but died in custody while awaiting trial.

According to prosecutors, the case unfolded like this: On August 6,
2005, Ong met with Mach in a downtown Boston restaurant after
finishing his police shift. The next day, Mach's drug courier
delivered 40,000 ecstasy tablets to Ong. On Aug. 10 Ong, was arrested
as part of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation, and three
months later Mach and most of the others were arrested.

Ong was convicted on charges of conspiracy to possess with the intent
to distribute ecstasy and methamphetamine, and was sentenced by U.S.
District Judge Julie E. Carnes to 14 years in prison plus five years
of supervised release.