Posted on 08/04/2015 12:52:50 PM PDT by Fitzy_888
TROY – An indictment unsealed in Rensselaer County Court Tuesday revealed a year-long undercover drug investigation that led to the arrest of 20 people, including including a former Watervliet police officer and numerous members of a Troy street gang.
The investigation by the State Police and state Attorney General's office was first revealed last month when a Watervliet police officer, Nicholas Pontore, was questioned about his dealings with a suspected drug dealer, Donald Kodadar, who was affiliated with the "Young Gunnerz" street gang in Troy.
Pontore, 29, resigned from his police job on June 18 when law enforcement officials said he was asked to submit to a drug test. His brother, Kevin Pontore, who was an Albany County corrections officer, was later accused of trying to communicate with Kodadar inside the county jail about the alleged drug dealer's statements to authorities about Nicholas Pontore.
Sheriff's officials said that Kevin Pontore also resigned when he was asked to give a statement and submit to a drug test.
Nicholas Pontore allegedly provided protection for the drug ring and purchased cocaine from the Young Gunnerz almost daily, including while on duty and in his marked police vehicle, according to the Attorney General's office. Officials did not specify how Pontore allegedly protected the drug dealers. They said that Pontore exchanged about 150 text messages with the suspected gang members, although they didn't become aware of his involvement until after he resigned from his police job.
Pontore's resignation from the Watervliet police force took place days after the arrest of Kodadar, who was his "primary contact" with the Young Gunnerz, officials said.
The resignation of Nicholas Pontore sparked a wider scandal within the Watervliet Police Department and Albany County Sheriff's Department. Pontore said he turned over a video implicating another city police officer, Joshua Spratt, for allegedly having sexual contact with teenage girls. Spratt was indicted last week on felony charges related to those allegations.
Spratt was a longtime school resource officer in the Watervliet School District.
Then on Friday, the sheriff's department's Stop-DWI coordinator, Martin Zaloga Jr., resigned a day after he was questioned by internal affairs investigators about information alleging he sent sexually explicit text messages to a teenage girl in Watervliet. The information had appeared on an anonymous Facebook page set up last week to defend Spratt. Sheriff's officials said that Zaloga acknowledged sending the text messages.
In an email to the Times Union over the weekend, Nicholas Pontore denied having a close relationship with Kodadar. He said Kodadar lived in a 4th Avenue house in Watervliet that's owned by Pontore and his brother Kevin. Kodadar has been held at Albany County jail on drug charges following his recent arrest.
Pontore said that Kodadar, 25, was friends with his brother Kevin and played in city basketball leagues with other members of the city's police department.
"I guess I just want to try and stay out of the news," Pontore wrote. "I gave you the information for the other girl that came foward. That place has a lot of bad and cover up in this ... and I don't want to be made the bad guy in all of this anymore."
In Rensselaer County Court Tuesday, Pontore was released on $100,000 bail after being charged with conspiracy, 19 counts of official misconduct and 19 counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance.
The investigation showed that the Troy street gang purchased drugs in the Bronx and redistributed them in the greater Capital Region, authorities said. During the year-long investigation, which included wiretaps, undercover surveillance and the use of informants, police seized more than 1,000 grams of cocaine and more than 100 bags of heroin.
Spratt, 34, is accused of having sexual relations with two teenage girls, ages 16 and 17. The seven-count indictment unsealed July 27 alleges Spratt had oral sex with the 16-year-old girl between Feb. 15 and April 10 in the parking lots of two cemeteries in Watervliet and Menands, on Third Avenue in the city of Watervliet, and in the parking lot of the Watervliet Elementary School.
Spratt, who is married, faces multiple years in prison on felony charges that include four counts of third-degree criminal sex act.
In the sprawling drug case that inadvertently led to Spratt's arrest, officials from the state Attorney General's Office spent Tuesday arraigning 19 people in Rensselaer County Court before Judge Debra Young. Assistant Attorney General Michael Sharpe brought two large boxes of evidence including telephone wiretap documents.
All of the suspects face numerous counts of drug possession, criminal sale of a controlled substance and conspiracy. The arraignments were continuing Tuesday afternoon as State Police, Troy police and state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman held a news conference at State Police headquarters in Albany.
In addition to Pontore and Kodadar, other people arrested in the drug investigation include: Karrice Bowen, Jaquetta Exum, Kenneth Ford, Andrew Hernandez, Joshua Lewis, Zyjee Lind, Daquan Murray, Coty O'Keefe, Jevon Smith, Thaddeus Steed, Craige Centra, Derick Dunbar, Leamon Grady, Darnell Marable, Melanie Melendez, Asjmere Powell, James Royer, and Rashad Thomas.
YIKES! Freakin hotbed of corruption!
Lot of Kodadars in the Albany/Troy area.
A corrupt drug cop. Shocking.
I’ve been in Roanoke visiting family for the last month and have infrequent web access, so it was nice to see news from home here on FR.
Tell you what... if I could convince the Mister to sell the house PDQ and join me here I’d do it. Roanoke VA is much nicer than the Albany cess-pool area.
(Great day in Waterveliet history...)
Police investigating massive local funeral home fraud case
By Ali Stewart
August 4, 2015
WATERVLIET, N.Y. (NEWS10) – One of the Capital Region’s largest funeral home franchises is the victim of what State Police are calling a massive embezzlement scheme – perpetrated by trusted longtime employees.
The case involves the Parker Brothers Funeral Home and the tally of the alleged theft is expected to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And that’s not the worst part.
News10 ABC’s Anya Tucker has confirmed that a former Watervliet Police Chief is one of the key figures being investigated in this case.
(...)
When I worked on the Fed Task Force doing Title 3 wiretaps, we used to say “It’s not a wire, until there’s a cop involved.”
Drug money gets everyone.
I went to school in Troy and actually lived in a brownstone apartment on Washington Park. Downtown was known to have male prostitutes and they would get taken for rides with local hoodlums posing as johns. They would rob them. And ofcourse, drugs were around. But, street gangs. Nah. Wow. If anything you'd think Troy would just be more gentrified and empty.
On another note, I do hear they have one of the best Farmer's Markets going.
Wow! Making Cohoes look like a garden spot! Incredible.... Are you a local? I’m a few towns over but close enough to smell the housefires.
I grew up just south in Menands.
The only reason to go to Waterveliet is Ted’s Fish Fry and Yanni’s BBQ. And...you can find a better fish fry than Ted’s.
Girlfriend works in Cohoes, says they’ll never crack that corruption because they’re all related and/or inbred.
Well HI, Neighbor!
Very cool to meet you here.
Your GF is likely right. Ah, life in a small town...
Originally from downstate, it is hard to find any restaurant with good food, but The Angry Penguin in Waterford has the BEST fish fry I’ve ever had.
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