Drugs and Gun Found at District Council

On Thursday morning September 24, two special agents from the Department of Labor paid a visit to 395 Hudson Street, headquarters of the New York City District Council of Carpenters.

Informed sources say, two federal agents armed with a search warrant “for a secret wall”, were escorted by council staff and taken to a specific location inside the council where the agents found a stash of OxyContin and a stun gun hidden inside a "secret wall."

OxyContin, a trade name for the narcotic oxycodone hydrochloride, is a painkiller available in the United States only by prescription. OxyContin, has a street name of “hillbilly heroin” and can cost as much as $50 per pill on the street.

It is illegal to be in possession of a stun gun in New York.

Sources say the agents made no arrest and there has been no official comment by the district council.

“The district council has a big drug problem,” under Fordes “Unity Team” administration, the council “was one big party” say sources.

Frank Spencer who has assumed supervision of the council really “has no clue to the extent of corruption and drug use.” Spencer, sources say is determined to identify and separated the good employees from the bad and develop a plan to clean up the district council.

Spencer is just kidding himself “he needs to clean house and fire at least half the council" if he really wants to change things a source inside the council said.

Spencer has been criticized for his handling of the supervision, especially by naming Pete Thomassen (Fordes right-hand man) as his assistant and for not keeping the membership updated on the supervision.

Sources say Pete Thomassen "knew exactly what was going on, Pete isn't some unsophisticated rube, he is a very sophisticated guy, you think he doesn't know anything?"

Everyone in Fordes inner circle “knew all along and simply couldn't resist the easy money, feeding at this trough of greed, hoping it was never going to end.”

The membership trust in the district council has been shattered. The lax ethics and previous scandals have left members too numb to be very outraged by the latest revelations of corruption, drug use, arrest of Mike Forde and think of it as just “business as usual.”