An investigation involving Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and local police departments resulted in the arrest of an Edgartown couple last week.
Steven Luce and Rosalynn Kent were taken into custody the morning of Jan. 12 after the DEA, assisted by the Martha’s Vineyard Drug Task Force, conducted a controlled delivery of a package containing drugs to their Edgartown residence.
According to police reports, on Jan. 8, Oak Bluffs Police were contacted by Homeland Security officials who informed them that a package shipped from Sweden and destined for Luce’s Edgartown address had been seized by Customs Border Patrol at New York’s JFK airport for containing at least two class E substances.
On Jan. 12, federal and local law enforcement, accompanied by a DEA Task Force Officer disguised in a UPS delivery uniform, hand-delivered the package to Luce at his residence. Luce was placed in handcuffs immediately after.
During a subsequent execution of a search warrant for the residence located at 363 Edgartown-West Tisbury Road, police confiscated 27.7 grams of “a white powdered substance believed to be cocaine,” 39.8 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, a “plastic tote with miscellaneous boxes of prescription medications,” that included over 17,000 pills meant for treating muscle pain, insomnia, erectile dysfunction, and bacterial infections, and a loaded, unlicensed large-capacity firearm.
Luce, 52, has been charged with trafficking (cocaine, 18-36 grams), possession of a large capacity firearm, two counts of possession with intent to distribute a Class E substance, one count of possession with intent to distribute a class C substance, two counts possession large capacity feeding device, improper storage of a large capacity firearm and possession of ammunition.
Kent, 43, faces charges of conspiracy to violate the drug law and three counts of possession with intent to distribute Class E and C substances.
The two were arraigned Monday. Kent’s bail was set at $200; Luce was held without bail.
Dumb, just like the bank robbers. You don’t buy stuff from Sweden and have it shipped here. It always gets flagged by customs. Buying sleeping pills from India gets flagged. Buying antibiotics from Peru gets flagged. Are there no clever criminals anymore?
AND you have to put it together yourself
andy— there are plenty clever criminals around.
You can find them on the boards of most
fortune 500 companies.
And in many of the ocean front estates on Martha’s Vineyard.
One and the same.
$200. ???
My thoughts exactly.
3 counts of possession with INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE and he gets bail set at 200?? I doubt a 19 year old in Dorchester district Court would have had such a low bail for those charges….
Kent’s bail was set at $200. Luce was denied bail.
Kent must be a Democrat
Frank– you must be a republican.
I can say that with confidence based
on your baseless assumption about Mr.’s
party affiliation.
Only a republican, and almost certainly
a MAGA republican would just regurgitate
MAGA talking points and blindly flail about
and spew baseless ad hominem innuendo.
Your comment is based on nothing but
your apparent bias towards about 1/2
of the people in this country.
Pretty disgusting from my point of
view. You might as well said he must
be a Jew, or black, or Hispanic.
Those one liners get lots of “likes”
on Fox and “X” . You would be better off trolling
over there.
Good thing your opinion doesn’t matter
Jerome– My opinion matters the exact same amount
as yours’ and Franks. You can criticize me for criticizing
Frank, but I’ll stand with my comment.
Republicans just instinctively have the knee jerk reaction
that everything it the “dems” fault, all unknown
affiliations on anything negative are assumed to be
“dems”. They might not even actually believe it,
but it gets lots of “likes” on right wing sites.
That’s fine. If someone post that kind of biased
crap here they won’t get a like from me.
You opinion matters to me, so post it.
I particularly look forward to criticism that
my comment is hypocritical since I am showing
bias towards republicans.
donnie you invented ad hominem
It seems social media across the island does not understand what bail is for. Bail is meant to ensure that you’re going to show up for court. New York has eliminated bail in a lot of cases as they felt it was unfair to poor people who could not afford bail money. If you have lived and worked as well as been part of the community for many years there is little reason to think you’re not going to go to court. You get almost all of your bail money back That is not the sentence. It could even be argued that Mr. Luce should not be in jail right now, but that is ultimately a judges decision.
Either do you Bob. Yes bail is used to ensure the accused shows up for court but the judge also takes into account the crime committed, safety of community and likelihood that the accused will commit the crime again. Our skyrocketing crime rates like we see in New York and other liberal cities is directly caused by progressives passing and abusing bail reform. Again another classic case of careful what you wish for liberal group think. See below link from the American Bar Association for additional info on bail. Revoke or hold without bail those who are a menace and you’ll solve most of our skyrocketing crime rates. You’re welcome.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/resources/law_related_education_network/how_courts_work/bail/
I hope you are never part of any legal proceedings as apparently you do not get it. You are entitled to your opinion, but it does not make it right. Try your gaslighting somewhere else.
No Bob, I do get it. It’s a small minority of the same people overwhelmingly committing the most amount of crime.
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/suspects-arrested-over-and-over-again-for-similar-crimes-nypd-says
It’s not gaslighting Bob as I have linked two of the most credible unbiased sources, the NYPD crime stats and the American Bar Association, that back up my point. Unlike you who has to resort to name calling which is basically admitting that I’m correct and you are wrong.
And just to further “gaslight” you Bob, New York was forced to change their bail reform because of the out of control crime as a result of the ridiculous reforms.
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/ny-state-of-politics/2023/04/28/once-again–new-york-s-bail-law-is-set-to-change
So Bob, just to recap, you clearly don’t understand how bail can be set by judges. It’s not just to ensure that a defendant shows up for court. A judge can set a high bail or deny bail based on the crime and if the accused is likely to commit another offense while out on bail. The problem Bob is that progressives for some reason don’t like to hold those who break the law accountable accept those who rioted on Jan 6. So Bob should those who were held without bail on Jan 6 alleged crimes been set free while awaiting their trials? Oh, I see, that’s different. I would have rather you just said thank you Mr. Kelly for your insightful information on how bail works and should work.
for once, and only once, I agree with you.
What’s Frank’s comment have to do with anything?
Nothing. The MAGA supporters comments tend to have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Or anything else.
Carl– The crime rate is not as cut and
dry as you may think it is.
There are many more factors than red or blue.
https://www.planetizen.com/blogs/122113-red-cities-blue-cities-and-crime
Then there are some slight biases
https://www.newsweek.com/high-crime-gop-cities-fueled-guns-inequality-1797939
And then there are some serious biases
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20230515/a-red-state-or-blue-city-murder-problem
Thanks for the links you posted, by the way.
Especially the article about recidivism.
Actual information allows for a more reasonable
educated, and productive discussion.
Don, I agree. As an example in one of the links violent crime and murder was down but other crimes were skyrocketing. I was mostly focused on bail as it relates to crime rates. But here are a few of my thoughts on the overall criminal justice system.
Crime stats can be funny. In places that enforce their laws can actually increase stats based on enforcement and others that don’t can drive stats down. And classifying crimes by either downgrading or overcharging also is manipulation. As an example many “law and order” red states will overcharge a person even if it drives up stats from theft to robbery or simple assault to attempted murder. The opposite happens in “progressive soft on crime” blue states where they downgrade crimes to a simple disorderly person offense to reduce criminal offenses.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/nyregion/new-york-police-department-manipulates-crime-reports-study-finds.html
This manipulation goes both ways and it’s not just happening in NYC. I think more people would rather live in a low crime area where LE practices the “broken windows” theory of policing because it’s zero tolerance. It works.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/broken-windows-theory
But it does put more people in the system. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Let me explain. Many years ago if you had a run in with the cops you would get a kick in the rear and sent on your way. Then we went to zero tolerance and every infraction you were printed and photographed. If you jumped a turnstile, spit on the sidewalk or had an open container in the park you were processed and in the system. The benefit of that was solving crimes after the fact. Mug shots and fingerprints of so many people were now available for comparison for burglaries and assaults. It works. But BUT but it was abused. Some of those people caught up for doing something stupid were given an unreasonable bail and had to spend a few days in jail. People lost their jobs or caught hell at home for making a mistake.
There are many academia types who says its racist and doesn’t work and below is one such opinion.
https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/shattering-broken-windows
All I can say is that my experience is locking people up drives the crime rates down. The 1994 crime bill has a great effect of reducing crime but shortly there after we had more people behind bars but we had safer communities. That’s a fact but it deals with the symptoms and not the problem.
But now we have gone way too far in the opposite direction. Same knuckleheads are committing all this retail theft that with no consequences. We need to meet somewhere in the middle on bail reform and holding people accountable. We have closed jails and have thrown our hands up. My honest concern is that people are going to take justice into their own hands and chaos will ensue. We need to come together.
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