Big pot bucks
Detectives from the Office of Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan have arrested four people in two related cases involving $1.1 million in a Little Italy apartment and a significant amount of high-potency, hydroponic, Canadian marijuana.
Daniel McGehean, 32, of 153 Mulberry St., where much of the money in shrink-wrapped bundles was found, and Richard Doyon, 27, of Quebec, were arrested and charged with illegal money trafficking relating to the sale and processing of marijuana high in THC, marijuana’s active ingredient.
At the same time, Dehran Duckworth, 41, a drummer in the band Narhed, and Richard Burke, 38, a real estate agent, were arrested for possession and sale of marijuana.
On Dec. 16, investigators stopped McGehean and Doyon as they were rolling suitcases and bags on wheels from the Mulberry St. apartment to a nearby car and found a total of $750,000 in bundles. A warrant search of McGehean’s apartment uncovered another $360,000, a shrink-wrapping machine and a money counter, according to the charges.
While tailing McGehean, agents observed Duckworth pick up a duffel bag from an E. 12th St. apartment and carry and deliver it to a parked car on E. 21st St. where Burke was sitting. Agents arrested the two suspects and found five pounds of the high-octane pot.
McGehean pleaded not guilty at his Feb. 8 arraignment, but Doyon failed to appear and was believed to be a fugitive. Duckworth and Burke were released pending their arraignments next week.
Arrested for rape
Mustapha Ouanes, 58, was charged with first-degree rape and attempted rape of two women he met in a West Village bar on Tues., Jan. 26. The victims told police they had been drunk and passed out in the suspect’s room in the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Ave. at 59th St. when one of them woke up to find the suspect was raping her and the other found that some of her clothes had been ripped off. Ouanes’s lawyer, Nabil Kassem, said the charges were false, and Ouanes pleaded not guilty at his arraignment. He was released on bail pending an April 19 court appearance.
Bleecker burglary
A Jersey City man was arrested Wed., Jan. 27, and charged with breaking into an apartment at 269 Bleecker St. a week earlier and stealing a wallet, a computer and credit cards that he used for a cab ride around the Village on Thurs., Jan. 21, police said. Joseph Ferrigno, 34, was arrested the week after the burglary when a cab driver reported the suspect tried to pay a fare with stolen credit cards. Ferrigno was being held pending a March 2 court appearance on burglary and grand larceny charges, said a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr.
W. 4th robbery arrest
Police arrested Keith Semiday, 35, and charged him with robbing a man at W. Fourth and W. 10th Sts. on Saturday morning Jan. 23. The victim, 61, had refused Semiday’s demand for money and walked away, but the suspect came from behind, knocked the victim to the ground, grabbed his cell phone and fled, police said. Semiday was arrested on an unrelated drug charge on Wed., Feb. 3, and his description matched the one the mugging victim gave, police said.
Club thugs
A Manhattan Criminal Court jury convicted three men on Fri., Feb. 5, of kidnapping, coercion and extortion in connection with a planned club, Restaulounge-Bar De Vill, at 68 W. Third St., which never opened because of financial and construction problems.
The defendants, Vasileios Gimagas, 35, a Greek national, and Ekkehart Schwarz, a German architect, partners in the club fiasco, kidnapped their landlord’s agent and hired Kakhaber Gogoladze, 37, a Georgian, to menace the agent and force him to forgo back rent of $267,000 on the club owed between 2007 and 2009. They also extorted $25,000 from the landlord by forcing the agent to sign a blank check.
The defendants face up to 25 years in prison at their sentencing next month.
Celebrity plea
Cameron Douglas, 31, the son of the actor Michael Douglas, pleaded guilty on Wed., Jan. 28, to possession and sale of methamphetamine and cocaine and possession of heroin. Drug Enforcement Administration officers investigating meth and coke traffic arrested Douglas July 28 last year in the Gansevoort Hotel on W. 13th St. in the Meatpacking District. The heroin charge stems from an attempt by his girlfriend to smuggle the drug in Douglas’s electric toothbrush from the Gansevoort Hotel, where he was arrested, to his mother’s Manhattan home, where he was under house arrest. Douglas is liable to get at least 10 years in prison at his sentencing scheduled for April 27.
Albert Amateau
