SURVEYOR TESTIFIES IN SCHOOL-ZONE DRUG SALE TRIAL

PITTSFIELD -- On a single day last Oct. 27, land surveyor Eugene
Galvagni Jr. was guided by an undercover police officer to at least
17 spots in and around the Taconic parking lot area in Great
Barrington, where drugs and money had swapped hands during the prior summer.

Galvagni hammered nails into the ground to mark locations that
undercover investigator Felix Aguirre had pinpointed as the site of
drug deals he had made with 17 young people. Where nails didn't work,
Galvagni used paint to mark the spots.

According to Galvagni's Superior Court testimony yesterday in the
trial of Kyle Sawin, 18, he returned to measure the distances from
those spots to the Great Barrington Co-operative Preschool and the
Searles/Bryant School complex. A veteran of school-zone measures for
court cases, Galvagni said during his testimony that he was hired by
the Berkshire district attorney's office last fall to verify that 17
young people had made their drug deals within 1,000 feet of the two
Great Barrington schools.

A school-zone drug charge carries a minimum mandatory two-year jail term.

A total of 18 people were arrested in late September in connection
with the investigation that began in January 2004 and that picked up
steam during the summer. Seventeen were facing school-zone charges
along with other drug dealing offenses. One suspect caught in the
sting allegedly made her drug sale outside the school zone.

Sawin, facing three charges of marijuana distribution and three
charges of violating drug laws within a school zone, allegedly sold
drugs to an undercover officer on June 30, July 6 and Sept. 3, well
within school-zone boundaries, according to testimony.

Galvagni, who said he has measured some 200 school zones for the
district attorney's office over the years, measured one of Sawin's
sales as occurring 498 feet from the preschool entrance and 856 feet
from Searles/Bryant. Two other sales ranged from 509 feet to 713 feet
from the preschool, but beyond the Searles/ Bryant boundary. The
preschool was closed for the summer at the time Sawin allegedly
swapped drugs for money with Aguirre. Two of the 18 arrested have
already pleaded guilty to their charges. A marijuana distribution
case against Alexandra Brenner, 18, was continued in District Court
in March without a finding.

A more serious slate of charges against Ryan Babcock, 20, of
Housatonic resulted Monday in a state prison sentence of four to six
years for both cocaine and marijuana dealing in a school zone.
Babcock pleaded guilty in Superior Court. Sawin is the first to
challenge the charges against him in a jury trial. He is also one of
seven suspects whose cases have been championed by a newly
formed organization, Concerned Citizens for Appropriate Justice,
which has raised a protest against District Attorney David F.
Capeless' use of the school-zone law against first-time offenders.

Entrapment alleged Sawin's attorney, Judith Knight, has indicated
that she intends to show that her client was a victim of police
entrapment, a vulnerable young man who would not have sold drugs
were it not for the pressure and coercion of Aguirre. Knight may have
a challenge ahead, according to other attorneys keeping an eye on the
case as a possible harbinger of what is to come for their own
clients. Knight must show that Sawin was the victim of a police
setup. But during opening arguments yesterday, Assistant District
Attorney Richard Locke told the 14-member jury that Sawin was, in
fact, an "entrepreneur," who carried marijuana, a scale and plastic
bags in his backpack last summer while selling drugs not just to
Aguirre, but also to others, some of whom wound up being arrested in
the September sweep.

At one point in June 2004, said Locke, Sawin announced to friends in
the parking lot: "I need to know what people want, because I'm going
out and bagging up." Aguirre, on that occasion, bought a $50 bag of
marijuana, said Locke, who recounted two other instances, one of
which included sales to two other people. Knight, presenting her
opening argument to the jury, said that the proximity of the schools
to the Taconic parking lot had no effect on schoolchildren, and that
children were not targeted or sought out for drug sales. The schools
and the parking lot are not within eyesight of each other, she
noted, and are separated by Main Street and a commercial area.

"It was not known to be a school zone," she said. "The officers knew
it and set up the buys there."

The Berkshire County Drug Task Force, she said, "swooped down on
Great Barrington," lodging drug charges and school-zone charges
against 17 people, 11 of whom were teenagers, she said. She
described it as an overzealous investigation and now an overzealous
prosecution.

Sawin, she said, wanted to fit in, wanted to be cool, had a summer
job and hung out where his friends were. The methods of Aguirre, she
said, were "entirely questionable," and Sawin was a "vulnerable,
susceptible teenager." Aguirre, she said, was aggressive and
persistent with Sawin and others "and would not take no for an answer."

Knight has kept Sawin's case in the context of the larger
investigation, ensuring with her questioning that the jury is alerted
that 17 other people were targeted in the drug sweep last year.

Trooper testifies During a half-day of trial business yesterday, the
jury also heard testimony from state police Trooper Christopher J.
Mieklejohn, the drug evidence officer for the drug task force.

After Locke questioned him about the chain of evidence for the drugs
purchased by Aguirre, Knight took a turn, asking him to recount a bit
about the years he has spent as an undercover police officer.

Setting the stage for her questioning of Aguirre, Knight asked
Mieklejohn whether it is his job to trick, deceive or lie to gain the
trust of suspects. "Your objective is to blend in," said Mieklejohn,
"to become part of the subculture."

Testimony will continue today.