Darien police announced Monday the arrest of three teens following an undercover operation in which the teens were allegedly involved in selling fake crack cocaine to a police officer.
According to authorities, an undercover officer met with Joshua Hurley, 18, of 261 Ely Ave in Norwalk, Jonathan Orellano, 18, of 53 Pine Hill Ave. in Stamford, and an unidentified juvenile, 16, of Stamford, on Friday, Jan. 11 at approximately 1 p.m. based on information from a confidential informant.
The officer had made arrangements to purchase a quantity of crack cocaine at the Stamford-Darien town border from a subject known only to police as "John." According to authorities, the transaction was allegedly completed but the officer discovered the four baggies he had been sold contained only a white powdery substance and no drugs.
Police contacted "John" again via text message, who promised to make good on the transaction and arranged for the purchase of additional quantities. "John" met with officers on Sat., Jan. 12, at approximately 4 p.m. in the parking lot of Best Buy on Connecticut Ave. in Norwalk.
Three suspects, identified by police as the parties detained, approached the undercover officer's vehicle and entered, with Orellano getting into the front seat and the other two parties entering the backseat of the vehicle.
The undercover officer produced $80 in cash, at which point Orellano allegedly grabbed the cash out of the officer's hands and all three exited and attempted to flee in different directions. All three were chased down by nearby cover officers involved in the sting and placed under arrest.
Orellano allegedly told police he never had any intention of selling any narcotics to the undercover officer and said it is not uncommon for him to steal from narcotics abusers, according to police.
The juvenile in Orellano's company was allegedly found to be in possession of a small quantity of marijuana upon arrest, police said.
Orellano faces charges of misrepresentation of controlled substance, second-degree larceny, conspiracy to commit second-degree larceny and interfering with an officer. He posted a $5,000 bond and has a scheduled court date of January 22nd.
The Stamford juvenile was charged with second-degree larceny, conspiracy to commit second-degree larceny, possession of marijuana and interfering with an officer. He juvenile was turned over to his mother and has a scheduled juvenile court date of January 15th.
Hurley faces charges of second-degree larceny, conspiracy to commit second-degree larceny and interfering with an officer. He was held in lieu of $5,000 bond. He was presented in court for arraignment on January 14th.
Sounds like a great investment of time and money, hows that drug war working out?
They have a undercover sting--for 80 bucks--thinking it was real stuff--then it turns out its fake , and then they charge them with selling fake drugs? OH my god. Here, Chris Noe, is where you can go off on cops. They set up a sting but are pursuing b.s. and then need to validate a whopping 80 buck sting on fake stuff-they charge them with stealing. The cops got fooled--but are now protecting drug users by making sure that the drug users only get real stuff from these fake dealers. Crazyness. 80 bucks? major stuff to devote 3-5 officers to .
Yeah--i wish i had the ability to reason, like you! I intended to buy 50 bucks worth of crack. It's not crack. So , I go to the cops, and say: I want to file a complain!! I wanted to buy crack, and they gave me fake crack!! Sure Ron--that is awesome logic. The confidential informant was robbed you say? Where do you get that? The logic goes like this--cops set up an operation to shut down a crack distribution point. They buy the stuff--let the kids go (they were not arrested initially) the cops discover they are not selling real drugs... so they want to arrest them for screwing drug users? Ok--yeah, my logic says--'who cares.' Just out of curiosity, Ron..... in your logical world- what element of these criminals are you most relieved about , knowing they are OFF THE STREET? Thanks for your answer on this , in addition to understanding why you think the informant was robbed ( also a crime, for you keeping score).
where did you get that info from? It clearly says above that it was a undercover police officer, not a confidential informant. What most likely happened is they got the number for the dealer after scaring a DHS student with a little bit of weed, and then got ballsy and thought they would turn things up to a crack cocaine bust and texted the dealer number saying they wanted to buy some crack, got it, wanted to do a bust, or work their way up the ladder some more but realized they got ripped off, called again to try to get some real drugs, and got ripped off again. "Person commits crime...person goes to jail." Not sure I can agree with this, it's a crime to go 10mph over the speed limit, but you won't go to jail for committing that crime, so your logic seems flawed.
Crime. Selling drugs, real or fake, is a crime. Don't like it? Write you're elected officials. Burgundy....out.