MAJOR PAST NORWALK DRUG INVESTIGATION STILL REVERBERATES

NORWALK -- A city police detective who led an FBI task force to
investigate rampant drug dealing at South Norwalk's Washington
Village public housing complex three years ago said he could not have
imagined at the operation's outset how successful it would be.

But after the 18-month operation by the FBI's Safe Streets Task Force
snared 22 men and women, each later convicted for drug dealing, and
seized several kilograms of narcotics, eight guns and more than
$20,000 in cash, Detective Terry Blake, an 11-year department
veteran, said the public housing complex on Water Street is a much
safer place to live.

Standing inside Washington Village about 10 days ago just before
school let out, Blake, 34, looked over an empty playground.

That wasn't always the way it was in the 136-unit tidy brick complex
bounded by Water Street to the east, Day Street to the west and
Raymond Street to the north.

"Washington Village is not like it was. There is no one standing on
the corner dealing crack. The violence and continued shootings have
stopped," Blake said.

Norwalk police Chief Harry Rilling said, "Any time you have criminals
infiltrate a housing authority property, it affects the quality of
life significantly and people don't feel safe."

And when a large number of criminals are removed from the streets of
Norwalk as the result of one long-term investigation that operation
has to be deemed a triumph, Rilling said.

"It was a tremendous success and the defendants will go away for
significant jail terms," he said.

The federal investigation had all the elements of a big-city crime
thriller, replete with the attempted murder of a federal witness at
point blank range, the discovery of 300 grams of crack cocaine
stashed in the stone wall of an elite Stamford prep school, hidden
trap doors in cars filled with drugs and guns, and the wiretapping of
tens of thousands of cell phone calls. Although the investigation had
been reported in bits and pieces, the full story of how it brought
down a pair of Stamford's leading drug dealers has never been told.

According to a recently unsealed 46-page sworn affidavit by FBI
Special Agent Christopher Munger, Washington Village -- the oldest
public housing complex in the state, having opened in 1941 -- had
been an open-air drug market operated by the Washington Village
Bloods gang since 2000.

In a commendation to the Safe Streets Task Force, which counted Blake
as a member from 2006 to earlier this year, U.S. Attorney Tracy Lee
Dayton described the area prior to the operation: "One need only
stand on the corner of Raymond Street in Norwalk and watch the
procession of cars traveling into and out of Washington Village to
recognize the plague of narcotics trafficking that had descended upon
the residents of that community."

Dayton, who obtained guilty pleas from all 22 defendants in the case,
said in that commendation, released one month ago, that the drug
organization was responsible for dealing 6.5 to 11 pounds of crack
and powder cocaine per week in the Stamford and Norwalk areas.

With all but a few defendants sentenced at this point, Blake said he
could now talk about the operation that monitored 20,000 calls on
three wiretapped phones in the space of a little more than two months
from mid-November 2007 into January 2008.

When he first pitched the drug investigation to the task force in
fall 2006, he, like many officers in Norwalk, knew that something was
very wrong at Washington Village.

Blake, who joined the department in 1998, said, "It was a big problem
for us. There was a lot of violent crime in the way of shootings and
shots fired and there were incessant complaints of narcotics dealing.
The residents were sick of it, but they were in fear of retribution
for contacting us."

With the help of confidential informants, witnesses and two people
identified only as "sources of information," the task force,
consisting of four FBI agents and officers from the Bridgeport,
Trumbull, Fairfield and Norwalk police departments, made scores of
drug buys around Washington Village beginning in January 2007, Blake
said.

A significant early success in the operation came on Sept. 4, 2007,
when East Norwalk resident Trayson Stevens, identified by the FBI as
a member of the Washington Village Bloods, drove a cooperating
witness working with the task force to Stamford to purchase 128
grams of crack cocaine.

The task force witness -- carrying $4,400 in federal evidence money
and a hidden recording device -- and Stevens, known on the street as
"Tray 8," met at Ryan Park behind the Norwalk Economic Opportunity
Now building and drove together to a parking lot off Stamford's East
Main Street, according to Munger's affidavit.

With Blake, FBI agents and members of Norwalk's Special Services Unit
watching and taking pictures, a green Toyota Camry and a black BMW
pulled in the lot a few minutes later, Blake said.

Stevens got into the Toyota, then returned to the informant's car.
They drove off together, and Stevens passed the informant a little
more than 4 ounces of crack -- the largest task force purchase of the
entire operation -- for the $4,400 cash, Munger's affidavit said.

The drug deal was important because it led the task force to top
Stamford narcotics dealers Isni "Ease" Gjuraj, who was in the BMW,
and Gjuraj's cousin Arbnor "Cookie" Gjini, who was in the Toyota,
Munger's affidavit said.

Task force agents determined that Diana Gjuraj, Isni's sister, owned
the BMW and Gjini owned the Toyota. This past summer, Diana Gjuraj,
37, of Stamford, was charged with money laundering, as well as aiding
and abetting her brother's narcotics business. She has pleaded not
guilty in the case.

After checking with Stamford police, the task force discovered that
Isni Gjuraj, 28, of Glenbrook Road, Stamford, the son of Albanian
immigrants brought up in the Stamford projects who got his start
dealing drugs selling marijuana to New Canaan High School students,
had been arrested in Stamford for narcotics sales and given a
three-year suspended sentence in 2001.

Along with convictions for breach of peace, assault and threatening,
Gjini, 26, also of Glenbrook Road, had a conviction for selling a
controlled substance in 2006.

The two became the focus of the task force in its quest to find out
who was supplying Washington Village Bloods with drugs, Blake said.
"It became clear at that point who the top guys were," he said.

The investigation continued, with several more successes coming in
the form of wiretaps and the use of informants.

On Nov. 14, 2007, special FBI agent Munger applied for a wiretap on
Stevens' phone; the task force would eventually record more than
14,000 conversations on it.

With the wire on Stevens' phone, the investigation picked up pace,
and over the course of the next two to three months, the task force,
sometimes working in 18-hour shifts, seven days per week, identified
more members of the organization, Blake said. Among those was
Norwalk resident Richard Davis, the No. 3 man under Gjuraj and Gjini.

The next big break in the operation came in Stamford on Nov. 27,
2007, when police pulled over Gjuraj, who was driving a Jeep
Cherokee. Inside the vehicle -- just as a cooperating witness had
tipped off the task force -- police found 125 grams of crack cocaine
and 10 cell phones, Blake said.

But despite a high bond, Gjuraj was back on the street a few hours
later, Blake said.

According to evidence obtained later, Gjuraj then became so angry
that he put out a hit on the male informant. On Christmas Eve 2007,
in Bridgeport, the informant was shot six times at point-blank range,
but lived. Gjuraj paid the gunman, Antonio "Biggie Smalls" Robinson,
of Stamford, 100 grams of cocaine and $1,000 for the shooting, court
records show.

A few days later, just after putting a wire on two of Davis' phones,
investigators intercepted calls in which Gjuraj found out the
informant was still alive and put out another order for his death.
The informant, who later spoke of his wounds during Gjuraj's
sentencing, was taken into protective custody and moved out of state.

The investigation peaked in the first two months of 2008, with the
arrests of Davis, Gjuraj and Gjini in January and the takedown of the
entire organization in mid-February.

On Jan. 17, 2008, Davis was pulled over in Gjuraj's Jeep in
Bridgeport. Hidden in a secret compartment in the vehicle, police
found 200 grams of cocaine, a handgun and 26 bullets.

Within a few days of Davis' arrest, working with information obtained
in the investigation, the task force, led by a Norwalk drug-sniffing
dog, seized 300 grams of crack cocaine hidden in a stone wall at the
private King Low Heywood Thomas school on Newfield Avenue in
Stamford, Blake said.

A few days later, on Jan. 20, the task force executed a search
warrant on Gjini's Toyota Camry. Inside a "trap" in the car's center
console were 600 grams (1.3 pounds) of powder cocaine, 800 grams (1.8
pounds) of crack cocaine, a fully loaded handgun and $3,000 in cash,
court records show. Gjuraj and Gjini went into hiding in New York,
but the pair were arrested at state Superior Court in Stamford days
later, on Jan. 30, when Gjuraj drove Gjini to visit his probation
officer at the courthouse. Both have been locked up ever since.

Then, on Feb. 18, starting at 6 a.m., 11 teams -- consisting of
members of Norwalk's police Emergency Services and Special Services
units, and the FBI's Safe Streets Task Force and SWAT team -- began
picking up the rest of the crew, Blake said.

Asked for a comment about the task force operation, Gjuraj's defense
attorney Robert Gulash said that Gjuraj became involved with people
and activities that were "way over his head." Gjuraj pleaded guilty
in November 2008 to one count of retaliating against a witness, one
count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute crack
cocaine, and one count of robbery. In August, he was sentenced in New
Haven federal court to 26 years and eight months behind bars.

After pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to distribute 50
grams or more of crack cocaine, Gjini was sentenced in August to 14
years in prison and 10 years supervised release.

Davis, 33, pleaded guilty to one count of retaliating against a
witness and one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to
distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine. At his sentencing,
scheduled for March, he faces a maximum life sentence for his role in
the informant's shooting.

Robinson, 38, pleaded guilty to retaliating against a witness and one
count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or
more of crack cocaine; he faces a mandatory minimum 20 years or a
maximum life sentence behind bars.

In August, Stevens was sentenced to 14 years in prison after he
pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute more than 50
grams or more of crack cocaine.

Blake, now an investigator in the Police Department's detective
bureau, said he was happy to have helped the community be safer.

"It was a long and significant investigation, and the bad guys were
true criminals causing significant problems to the community, and it
is nice where people like that go away," Blake said.