Patriot player's drug arrest detailed

Oxycontin pills were Canadian, N.Y. police say

New England Patriots offensive lineman Nicholas Kaczur had 202 Oxycontin pills imprinted with letters indicating they were Canadian-made stuffed in his pocket when he was arrested by New York State Police in April, according to police reports.

Kaczur told police he bought the pills in Boston from a drug dealer named Danny, but a spokesman for the company that makes the pills and a drug industry specialist said the 202 pills, each marked CDN on one side, were made in Canada and imprinted with those letters to curtail cross-border smuggling of the potent painkiller.

The attorney for the suspected drug dealer, Daniel Ekasala, said his client was not the source of the pills police found in Kaczur's truck on April 27 as the lineman was returning to the United States from his hometown of Brantford, Ontario.

After his arrest on a misdemeanor charge of drug possession, Kaczur cooperated with federal investigators in the Boston area and was recorded as he allegedly made controlled purchases of Oxycontin pills from Ekasala three times during May. Ekasala has pleaded not guilty to three counts of possession of oxycodone, the main ingredient in the prescription drug Oxycontin, with intent to distribute.

Given a detailed summary of the police reports, Kaczur's Boston attorney, Steven J. Comen, declined to comment.

"Out of respect for the ongoing legal process, we cannot comment at this time," Comen said.

Next week, just before the New England Patriots open training camp Thursday, Kaczur is scheduled to be arraigned in Whitestown town court on a charge of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, a misdemeanor.

Oneida District Attorney Scott D. McNamara, whose office is prosecuting Kaczur for the drug-possession charge, said he has no authority under New York state law to enhance the charges against Kaczur if it is determined that he brought the pills across the border.

"There is no state charge that enhances the penalties for bringing them across the border," McNamara said. "The only thing that would enhance our charges is if you have possession with intent to sell them. And on that basis, we do not have any evidence of that regarding Mr. Kaczur."

McNamara said that prosecution of cross-border drug smuggling is a federal responsibility and that federal officials have not asked his office to turn over prosecution of Kaczur to them.

A spokeswoman for US Attorney Glenn T. Suddaby's office in Syracuse declined to comment last night.

In the New York State Police reports obtained by the Globe, troopers said they stopped Kaczur on the New York State Thruway after observing him driving 76 miles per hour in a 65-mile-per-hour zone. They also said that his exhaust system was too loud and that the tint on his windows was darker than allowed under New York law. Police said they spotted four pills on the dashboard and began a more detailed inquiry.

Kaczur, in a handwritten confession police said he gave after waiving his Miranda rights, described what happened next.

"I was coming from Canada, where I was visting my family for the weekend," Kaczur wrote. "A trooper asked me if I had anything on me, which I said no. Then he checked the pocket on my sweater, where he found 202 pills of Oxycontin."

Police described the pills as "approximately 202 green Oxycontin pills bearing an 80 on one side and CDN on the other."

Kaczur wrote that he purchased the pills from a "guy named Danny" somewhere "off Highway 93 in Boston."

Ekasala's attorney, Bernard Grossberg, has disputed Kaczur's assertion that his client sold pills marked CDN.

"Those are Canadian pills, and Ekasala is not the source of those pills," Grossberg said in a recent phone interview. "It just begins to raise questions about Kaczur's credibility."

William McCloskey, executive director of the Center for Drug Information and Natural Products at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, said the CDN stamp is distinctive.

"They are Canadian," he said of Oxycontin pills stamped with CDN. "It's manufactured in Canada."

James W. Heins, spokesman for drug manufacturer Purdue Pharma, said the company added the CDN in 2001 in response to concerns from New England law enforcement officials that Oxycontin was being smuggled into the region from Canada.

"Those are pills that are intended specifically for distribution in Canada," Heins said. "We heard from law enforcement in New England that there was some smuggling going on over the Canada-US border."

Stacey James, Patriots spokesman, said last night, "I will confirm that he is still on the team, but we are not providing additional comment."

John Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com