Last week Lloyd Police Chief James Janso told the Town Board that for the past five years a town police officer has, at times, served as a member of the Ulster Regional Gang Enforcement Narcotics Team [URGENT]. Chief Janso introduced Ulster County Sheriff Juan Figueroa and Capt. Joseph Sciutto to talk about this important program.

 

Sheriff Figueroa noted that Chief Janso sits on the executive board of URGENT, serving as a rotating Chief. He added that Capt. Sciutto, himself and Ulster County District Attorney Emmanuel Nneji also serve on this board.  

 

Sheriff Figueroa said, “the partnership that we have with our local law enforcement is extremely important.” He said because of Ulster County’s proximity to New York City, Poughkeepsie and Newburgh, “there is a lot of crime that comes into Ulster County [and] if it wasn’t for the partnerships we wouldn’t be able to do what we did for the last five or six years, which has seen the biggest gun and drug seizures in the history of Ulster County.”

 

Figueroa said URGENT is grateful for the participation of local police agencies, saying, “it’s extremely important and we can’t do it by ourselves.”  

 

Figueroa introduced Captain Sciutto who presented Chief Janso with a check for $2,750, culled from asset forfeiture money that was seized during narcotics investigations.

 

“This year we had $90,000 to distribute among all the participating agencies, with our agency not taking a cut in it,” Sciutto said.

 

Supervisor Dave Plavchak said, “we do appreciate the check but I think more than the check, we really appreciate what you’re doing to keep drugs off the street, what you’re doing to keep guns under control and helping us all stay safer and we’ll continue the partner with you; we think it’s a great program.”

 

Capt. Sciutto thanked the Town Board, “for all the support you give Chief Janso so he can help us support our mission. This Task Force is a force multiplier, not just for our Sheriff’s office, but for all the agencies that participate...the men and women that we’ve assigned to the Task Force are hand selected, they attend specialized training in the field of investigations. Percentages of the money that is seized from investigations by law goes to the District Attorney’s Office and other percentages go to the Office of Addition and Recovery Services of New York State. Fees are first paid out to either victims or to attorneys for processing these claims and then the Task Force gets left with the remainder. The money here today was from local asset forfeiture for local cases that we did and prosecuted through the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office. We also have another amount of money that’s considered asset federal forfeiture and that is because we have federal partners embedded within our Task Force. We do investigate and prosecute federal crimes and the Town of Lloyd Police Department and other agencies will have access to procure gear and equipment through use of those funds.”