SUBSTANCE SEIZED IN DRUG ARREST PROVES TO BE LAUNDRY DETERGENT

WORCESTER- A Holland man who was arrested on charges of trafficking
methamphetamine says he's clean, that the drug confiscated from his car by
police was simply laundry detergent.

After laboratory results tested negative for the drug, charges of
trafficking in excess of 200 grams of methamphetamine were dismissed in
Central District Court against Leroy Wilcox, 42, of 1 Mashaupaug Road,
Holland, and a co-defendant, Edward J. MacIsaac, 20, of 317 Park St.,
Keene, N.H.

"It was a bag of laundry detergent from Wal-Mart," Mr. Wilcox said.

He and Mr. MacIsaac were arrested May 9 after police allegedly received a
tip that a car with New Hampshire plates was supposed to make a delivery at
the Best Western hotel on Oriol Drive.

Methamphetamine is a highly addictive form of amphetamine, a stimulant
known on the street as speed, meth, or crank, and is typically manufactured
in illegal laboratories.

At the hotel, vice squad officers said in their reports, a gray Oldsmobile
Delta 88 with New Hampshire plates pulled up with six occupants. As police
approached the car, they saw the front center passenger, identified as Mr.
MacIsaac, allegedly throw a piece of foil from the car and the right rear
passenger, identified as Mr. Wilcox, allegedly step on a plastic bag, a
move they saw as an effort to smear its contents into the floor.

Police said they allegedly found directions on Mr. Wilcox on how to make
methamphetamine and the address of a Web site listing how to make the drug.
Officers also said they field tested the confiscated substance at the
police station and that results came back positive. However, official state
laboratory tests came back negative, and the charges were dismissed days later.

Police Sgt. Gary J. Quitadamo said he would not comment beyond the test
results, but stressed the initial field tests were positive. He said the
drug has many ingredients, and the lab tests showed the entire substance
police found in the car tested negative.

Mr. Wilcox said he has acquired a lawyer and also made a complaint that a
police dog bit his younger daughter's clothes.

"This is not done or over by no means," he said.

He said the initial police report was false, in that he never pushed his
foot into the floor as police said. He said he had no shoes on. He also
said reports that Mr. MacIsaac threw foil out of the car were false, that
the passenger side window in the car is broken and doesn't roll down.

Mr. Wilcox said he suspects one of the remaining four occupants of the car,
who were not arrested, was a police informant and that the informant put
the paperwork listing the Web site and directions in his car. Mr. Wilcox
said he picked the papers up, not knowing what they were, but that the
paperwork was not his.

"I was in jail for 13 days for nothing," he said, saying the publicity has
spoiled his reputation in his small-town home of Holland. "Everybody back
home thinks I'm Al Capone."