The Boston Globe’s John R. Ellement and Shelly Murphy report Patriots OL Nick Kaczur was busted last month on a charge of illegal prescription painkiller possession, then turned into a DEA informant in a sting operation that resulted in his dealer’s arrest. All this frantic police activity is gonna make it very hard for Belichick’s kids to get high in the future.
Kaczur wore a hidden recording device during three different drug transactions in May at gas stations in Foxborough and North Attleborough and a supermarket parking lot in Sharon, according to the lawyer, the two people, and federal court documents. At each of the three transactions, Kaczur paid $3,900 in cash to buy 100 OxyContin pills, a potent prescription pain reliever. Federal agents arrested the alleged dealer, Daniel Ekasala, moments after the third transaction with Kaczur, said Ekasala’s lawyer. He was indicted by a federal grand jury yesterday on three counts of possession of oxycodone (the main ingredient in the prescription drug OxyContin) with intent to distribute. He is due to be arraigned today in federal court.
Kaczur, approached yesterday afternoon by a Globe reporter as he stood on the front porch of his Attleboro home, denied participating in a DEA investigation or buying drugs. He also said he was not familiar with Ekasala.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, bro,” Kaczur said repeatedly, in response to questions about the investigation. “I don’t know where this is coming from. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
When asked if he was still playing for the Patriots, Kaczur, whose salary is listed at just under than $1.4 million this year, said, “Yeah.”
Ekasala’s attorney, Bernard Grossberg described his client as “an extremely reluctant participant and was somewhat enamored of being friendly with or having contact with a professional athlete.” Grossberg said that, according to DEA documents presented to him before the indictment, Kaczur said he had begun buying OxyContin in November 2007 and purchased 100 pills every few days, paying tens of thousands of dollars over time.
“My client was always sympathetic to Mr. Kaczur and suggested to him many times, as the text messages will show, that Kaczur ought not to be doing what he was doing,” Grossberg said. “Professional athletes in this country are treated like royalty, and royalty sometimes abuses the people they come in contact with, and I think that’s what happened to Ekasala.”