MANHATTAN prosecutors are moving to seize the hundreds of thousands of dollars a drug kingpin’s wife made from selling their Harlem apartment — which she bought from the city for just $US250 ($330), court papers show.
Nicole Moultrie bought the apartment in 2004 for the nominal price as part of a city program that aimed to encourage homeownership for low- and middle-income city families. She sold it for an estimated $US430,000 ($562,860), prosecutors alleged in court filings this week.
Prosecutors want that money seized as illegal profits from the drug-running business, saying in court documents that by 2010, her husband, Lamont, had turned the building at 101 W. 115th St. into the hub of his drug empire.
101 W. 115th St. Picture: Tomas E. GastonSource:New York Post
The building reeked of drugs and chemicals, officials said. The vacant apartment next to theirs became a storage closet for PCP and supplies. Crack cocaine and 9mm bullets were found in the basement.
Police and prosecutors mounted a 15-month investigation into the ring, including wiretaps, and brought it down in 2012, arresting Moultrie, her husband and her mother, Doris Smith, among the more than 30 people rounded up. Prosecutors allege the crew made $US1.5 million ($1.96 million) in profits from dealing drugs from January 2011 through January 2012.
Moultrie pleaded guilty to a litany of charges stemming from the arrest and was sentenced to four years in prison. She is currently out on parole.
[SOURCE :-news]
