N.J. pipeline to Syracuse linked to murder, drugs

Syracuse, NY -- Long before police discovered the migration of heroin addicts from New Jersey to rehab in Syracuse, there was the case of LeRoy Jennings.

Jennings came to Syracuse from New Jersey to recover from alcohol addiction at the Salvation Army counseling center on Erie Boulevard East. He dropped out of the evangelical program and crashed at the apartment of his new friend, Walter Perry, the bell captain at the Hotel Syracuse (whole article: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/nj_pipeline_to_syracuse_linked.html )

........There have been new developments:
• Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner asked the Salvation Army to stop taking referrals from the outreach groups at the heart of the investigation. The agency agreed.

• The Justice Department discovered that all 17 of the people arrested were from New Jersey. Prosecutors and Salvation Army officials said three went through the Salvation Army drug program and at least three others have a family connection to the program.

• One of the men arrested, Derrick Campbell, came to the Salvation Army drug rehab program after serving three years in prison in New Jersey for his seventh felony drug conviction.

“In my 18 years as a prosecutor, I’ve never seen a defendant with seven prior felony drug convictions,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Katko said at a detention hearing last week. “He’s used to the revolving door of justice in New Jersey. He’s used to short sentences, then getting out on probation or parole and he’s back at it again.”

• Until Miner’s request, the Salvation Army continued to take people from New Jersey and other states last week and took no responsibility for bringing drug activity to Syracuse. Staff said they did not do criminal background checks and instead relied on the drug addicts to reveal any past crimes.

Salvation Army staff said, in a written statement, that they had not had any contact with federal prosecutors and had no knowledge of the incidents except the information in the newspaper

.....The rehab program has no government oversight and receives no government money, he said.

One-third of the Erie Boulevard East rehab center’s beds are filled with people from New Jersey. That’s about 100 people a year.

The Salvation Army does not follow up with people after the program.

And regardless of the high drop-out rate, the Salvation Army staff did not see a reason to tell police about the people they were importing to Syracuse — even though the police chief is on the Salvation Army’s advisory board.

“I don’t see it as our responsibility to tell the police department, just as when folks are moving from one community to another they are not required to do that,” Schoch said.

The program supports itself. The people in the program work 40 hours a week at the Salvation Army warehouse and at the rehab center without pay, helping the agency generate annual revenues of more than $6 million at its thrift stores.
.......
In recent years, the number of people enrolled in the program through New Hope Baptist Church in Newark has been sporadic, Schoch said. When it started 10 years ago, as many as 15 people a week were bused from Newark to Syracuse, according to the minister who got the program started.