Long Beach city worker arrested for dealing heroin

Employee allegedly sold drugs while on the job at bus depot

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A city employee was arrested on felony drug charges Wednesday after she allegedly sold heroin while working as a part-time clerk at the city’s bus depot.

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice and Long Beach Police Commissioner Mike Tangney said that 22-year-old Chelsey Lindsey was selling heroin out of an office, where Tangney said she scheduled bus service for people with disabilities.

According to Rice, the LBPD launched an investigation into heroin dealers in the area in response to a series of local drug overdoses. Lindsey, a Long Beach resident who earned $10 an hour, had only been working for the city since last November, and Tangney said investigators believe she had been peddling the drug the entire time.

“In the winter, we received a tip that she was dealing heroin out of our city garage,” said Tangney, who added that the Police Department’s Narcotics Task Force partnered with Rice’s office and set up "sophisticated" surveillance cameras during the operation.

According to Rice, investigators discovered that between March and June, Lindsey sold heroin in the Long Beach community, and some of those sales took place while she worked at the bus depot.

“We were able to document three distinct buys, and the information was presented to a grand jury, who indicted Ms. Lindsey,” Tangney said. “And once we had the indictment, we picked her up at the garage. She had an active enterprise; people would come and visit her, but they were actually narcotics customers, and she would make the transaction on city property. We pursued this very aggressively.”

Lindsey was arrested at her job without incident, Tangney said, and was in possession of five Oxycodone pills and a small amount of marijuana.

“It is outrageous to think that a public employee collecting wages paid by taxpayers would actively contribute to an epidemic of heroin abuse that is approaching crisis levels in Nassau and beyond,” Rice said in a statement. “I want to thank the hard-working members of the Long Beach Police Department for their efforts to keep this dangerous and destructive drug off our streets.”

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