Nineteen people have been hit with federal charges for allegedly running a brazen, open-air drug market in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park — flooding the area with fentanyl, heroin and crack cocaine.
The drugs dealt by the alleged career dealers led to two deaths last year alone — including an 18-year-old boy who had only just graduated high school and a 43-year-old homeless person, a federal indictment charges.
“During the last five years, officers with the New York City Police Department’s Sixth Precinct, which has jurisdiction over the Washington Square Park Area, have arrested the defendants on over 80 occasions for state drug-related offenses and other crimes; some over a half a dozen times,” court filings state.
“Upon release from those arrests, the defendants returned to selling drugs in the Washington Square Park Area, despite the defendants’ pending state charges, or terms of state bail, probation, or parole.”
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