ALBANY — Alan Skorupski once dispatched cops to radio calls around the city. More recently, federal prosecutors say, he was doing most of the driving — ferrying drugs and helping gang members dodge police tails.
The 58-year-old grandfather from Nassau allegedly used his taxi cab to steer drugs and money around Albany for reputed members of the Jungle Junkies, a street gang now under federal indictment for racketeering.

In the yearlong investigation of the gang's alleged crack-cocaine and marijuana ring in and around Arbor Hill and West Hill, Skorupski is a man apart.

Authorities describe him as a "worker" who helped gang members distribute crack around the city but who was not a gang member himself and is one of only a handful of the defendants not charged with racketeering.

Skorupski also is nearly 30 years older than the next-oldest defendant, lives well outside the city and, prosecutors say, has no serious criminal history.

But prosecutors say the former police dispatcher's gig as a cabbie gave him cover to move from one drug corner to the next — sometimes in and out of the city to service suburban customers — without drawing undue attention.

Skorupski's reputation as a crack connection was established enough, prosectors said, that some customers knew to call his cab company and ask for him by name.

Other times, he would pick up and deliver the drugs himself, adding dollars to the fare as his cut, Assistant U.S. Attorney Carlos Moreno said Thursday in U.S. District Court.

Skorupski's experience around law enforcement, Moreno said, also was an asset, helping him identify police surveillance and alert gang members.

But it was his cellphone calls that could send him to prison for at least 10 years.

Authorities say they have recorded at least 12 phone calls between Skorupski and cellphones used by Ernest Conley, a 19-year-old Albany man prosecutors portray as a central figure in the gang.

Police eavesdropped on Conley's calls for 36 days spanning August and September in hopes that it would help them connect the dots among reputed gang members and associates in the Jungle Junkies' criminal constellation.

So far, the phone taps have figured prominently in the government's case against the 29 co-defendants, 25 of whom are charged under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, a law designed to target organized crime.

Thirty people were named in a two-count indictment unsealed Oct. 13. One defendant, Hector DeJesus, who was charged only as a part of the drug conspiracy, has had his case dismissed.

Transcripts of the calls read Thursday at Skorupski's detention hearing depicted hurried, vague conversations about deliveries, money and troubles price-haggling with customers looking for a deal, prosecutors allege.

Skorupski was allegedly recorded talking to both Conley and Shatia Wright, the lone woman charged in the case. Prosecutors say Conley and Wright used Skorupski as a go-between to deliver drugs and collect money, sometimes splitting the profits of the sales.

In one conversation, Wright allegedly tells Skorupski she secretly left him "baggies" in the back of his cab.

But Skorupski's attorney, Paul DeLorenzo, argued the recordings prove little when drugs aren't mentioned in any of the transcripts.
 http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=529424&category=ALBANY&BCCode=&newsdate=10/28/2006