Friday, October 21st 2011, 5:26 PM
Forty-six people ranging in age from 17 to 63 were pinched during a seven-month probe of drug dealing in LeFrak City, one of the nation's largest private housing complexes, Queens prosecutors said Friday.
The daycare center, which caters to children and infants as young as six weeks-old, is located within LeFrak City, home to some 15,000 residents.
"Dealers in this operation are alleged to have hit a new low: selling drugs out of a daycare center where hard-working parents drop off their children in the expectation that they will be shielded from harm - not caught up in it," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.
Among those nabbed was an inspector for the city Taxi and Limousine Commission. Prosecutors say he unleashed a pit bull on cops when he was caught smoking a joint outside his apartment on 57th Ave. this week.
Undercover investigators made 14 drug buys in the Burke-Arthur Day Care Center, which is licensed to care for as many as a dozen children, ranging from infants to 12 year-olds.
Those who were collared for dealing drugs out of the center were Hector Rodriguez, 24, and Donnell Barnhill, 23. Rodriguez is the son of the center's owner, Diane Burke; Barnhill is the father of her daughter's child.
Police said that on Wednesday they spotted Eugene Griffin, a lieutenant inspector with the Taxi and Limousine Commission, walking out of his two-bedroom apartment smoking marijuana. Griffin, 62, went back inside the apartment despite being told by cops not to move.
Inside the apartment, a pit bull, whose vocal cords had been cut to prevent him from barking, attacked a detective, biting him on the leg, authorities said.
Recovered from Griffin's apartment were 263 plastic bags of marijuana as well as cocaine and a .25-caliber pistol. Griffin's wife and son were arrested on drug and weapons charges along with him.
The investigation, led by the NYPD's Queens Narcotics division, turned up seven pounds of marijuana, two pounds of cocaine and $3,400 in dirty money.
"Illegal drugs ruin lives and destroy neighborhoods, and in this case even put toddlers at risk," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
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