Authors: Mark Bowden
Doctor Dealer
MARK BOWDEN
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
The Best Game Ever
Bringing the Heat
Black Hawk Down
Guests of the Ayatollah
Killing Pablo
Copyright © 1987 by Mark Bowden
Afterword copyright © 2001 by Mark Bowden
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, or facilitation thereof, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
Originally published in 1987 by Warner Books, Inc., a Warner
Communications Company, New York, New York
The article beginning on page xiv is reprinted with permission
from
The Philadelphia Inquirer,
May 16, 1986.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
The events in this story are true. Names and physical characteristics of many
individuals have been changed in order to protect their privacy.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bowden, Mark
Doctor dealer / Mark Bowden.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York, NY : Warner Books, c1987.
ISBN-10: 0-8021-3757-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-3757-9
1. Lavin, Lawrence W. 2. Narcotics dealers—United States—Biography.
3. Dentists—United States—Biography. 4. Cocaine habit—United States—
Case studies. 5. Narcotics, Control of—United States—Case studies. I. Title.
HV6248.L325 B69 2000
364.1’77’092—dc21
[B]
00-032146
Design by H. Roberts
Grove Press
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Distributed by Publishers Group West
08 09 10 11 12 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6
For Tom Scheye
First among those I would like to thank for helping me write this book are Larry and Marcia Lavin, who answered my innumerable questions with patience, thoughtfulness, and candor—even when the subject matter concerned things they would prefer to forget. Thanks are also due to Chuck Reed, Sid Perry, Mike White, Peter Scuderi, Agnes Osborn, Nancy Payne and her family, Jess and Babette Miller, Steve La Cheen, Henry S. Ruth, Jr., Willie Harcourt, Ricky Baratt, Glen Fuller, Brian Riley, John Sidoli (pianist and mathematician), Suzanne Taylor, Christine Pietrucha, Tom Bergstrom and Lynn, Chris, and Anita Furlan, Ron Noble and Tina Williams Gabbrielli, Pauline and Justin Lavin, Sr., and others who will appreciate not being named.
I would also like to thank Gene Roberts for giving me time off to work on this book, Jamie Raab, Ed Sedarbaum, Rhoda Weyr, David Hirshey, Hank Klibanoff, Donald Kimelman, Avery Rome, Katherine Hatton, Elizabeth Coady (because I owe her one), and Rosie Patterson (for watching Danny). A special thanks to Gail, to my mother and father, and to each and every member of my family for their continuing love and encouragement.
One
Strike One . . . Strike Two . . .
Three
Less Risk, More Exposure
Eight
It’ll Just Be a Tax Case
Thirteen
Does This Have Something to Do with Larry?
Epilogue
Federal Courthouse, Philadelphia
DOCTOR DEALER
Virginia Beach
There was no reason to suspect anything unusual when Larry saw Pat O’Donnell on the dock in a business suit. Pat was a semiretired FBI agent who kept his boat berthed at the Lynnhaven Dry Storage marina. He often came by after putting in a morning at the office, and spent the afternoon talking to his friends as they came in off the water. Sometimes he carried a walkie-talkie in case the office needed to get in touch.
Larry had been out all day with his friend Roy Mason. It had been a lazy fishing trip on a calm sea under a sky so bright it hurt the eyes. Larry looked tousled and tired, the picture of a man of leisure back from a day at sea, his thick black hair windblown, his long narrow nose and cheeks sunburned. He was dressed in a maroon rugby shirt with wide chest stripes of yellow and blue, worn baggy jeans, and leather deck shoes with no socks. He smelled of fish, and was eager to get home and clean up. Larry didn’t enjoy fishing as much as Roy; he had gone along mostly to keep his friend company. They hadn’t caught much, just a few cove fish that were a nuisance because they snapped at your fingers when you tried to take them off the hook.
As the vessel swung alongside the pier, O’Donnell strode out to meet them. Larry figured Pat wanted to ask, as dedicated fishermen always did, what they had caught and where. Docked across the narrow slip of water, facing seaward, Larry was surprised to see a high-performance Wellcraft, a sleek speedboat called a Scarab. Pat had been talking to two men in that boat. They were also in business suits . . . that was odd.
When the boat got close, Larry jumped up to the wharf and, with Roy feeding him the lines, quickly secured them and skipped back aboard to begin retrieving his gear.
“How’s the fishin’?” asked Pat.
Larry smiled and turned and stooped to open the cooler. He knew the sight of three or four cove fish would make Pat laugh. But before he could turn and display the largest of their catch he was grabbed under both arms by men he had not even seen approaching.
“Larry, it’s all over,” said Pat.
“You’re under arrest,” one of the men said.
Larry looked at Pat, who was no longer smiling.
“You are Larry Lavin, aren’t you?” asked one of the men holding his arms.
“Yes. I am,” said Larry quietly. The man clapped handcuffs on his wrists in one quick motion.
“Wait just a minute . . . there must be some mistake!” shouted Roy. “Pat, what’s going on here?”
Larry was already being rushed forward along the pier, now with a group of five or six men around him. Behind him he overheard Pat O’Donnell hushing Roy’s protests, trying to explain.
(The
Philadelphia Inquirer;
May 16, 1986)
Lawrence W. Lavin, the former Northeast Philadelphia dentist who allegedly masterminded a major cocaine-distribution ring, was arrested without incident yesterday as he disembarked from a fishing boat in Virginia Beach, Va., the FBI said.
Lavin, 31, had been a fugitive since November 1984, a few months after he was charged with heading a $5-million-a-month cocaine ring involving many other young professionals. He was free on $150,000 bail when he and his then-pregnant wife fled their Devon home.
An FBI spokesman in Philadelphia said agents arrested Lavin about 5:20 p.m. as he and another dentist—who did not know Lavin’s true identity—were docking the other man’s 25-foot sport fishing boat at a marina. He was wearing blue jeans and a rugby shirt. He had been using an alias but had made no effort to disguise his appearance, the FBI said.
At the same time agents were arresting Lavin, other agents were arresting his wife, Marcia, at the couple’s home in an exclusive Virginia Beach development known as Middle Plantation, the FBI said. She was charged with harboring a fugitive.
Both were being held in Virginia last night pending an arraignment before a federal magistrate. The couple’s two children, including a baby, had been living with them, according to the FBI.
Lavin faces drug charges in U.S. District Court here that could bring him a life sentence if he is convicted. In addition to a 40-count indictment on
drug offenses, he is also charged with evading $545,000 in federal income taxes.
Federal authorities said the cocaine ring—which they dubbed the “Yuppie Conspiracy”—was one of the largest ever uncovered here, handling up to 175 pounds of cocaine a month. The drug in turn was distributed to others in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New England and the Southwest, according to federal prosecutors.
More than 50 people, including three graduates of the University of Pennsylvania dental school, two lawyers and two stockbrokers, along with many other professionals, have been charged with being part of the drug conspiracy that Lavin allegedly headed.
At the courthouse in Norfolk the clerks gossiped about television. Just another ordinary night shift. As he waited to be fingerprinted, Larry was told to sit on a bench in a corner of the room. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he was forced to lean forward awkwardly. He stared down at the manacles clasped tightly over his jeans around his lower legs, inches above his bare ankles. They were connected by a heavy chain about two feet long. Under the leg irons were his deck shoes, worn and familiar. Just an hour ago he had been standing on the deck of his friend’s boat, at sea. . . .
And the clerks made small talk about soap opera. One of the arresting agents phoned Chuck Reed, the FBI man who had haunted Larry’s dreams for the last three years, to report that Lavin was finally in custody. At first Larry figured Reed would want to talk to him. He thought about what he might say—“Hi, Chuck. Long time no see”—but the conversation went on between agents as though he weren’t even there: “How’s the family?” “Give Sid my regards.” “Now you can get to work on other things.” They had just destroyed his life and they were congratulating themselves like salesmen who had just closed a big deal.
As he waited, dejected, Larry mostly worried about Marcia. What had they done with Marcia?
Just minutes after they had picked him up at the marina, as he sat in the backseat of the gray government sedan, the agent had turned and asked, “Are there any neighbors you could leave the kids with?”
Larry had gasped, “You don’t have to arrest my wife!” and realized at once that the curt instructions being radioed from the front seat had directed agents to close in on his house. It was . . . what? Five-thirty. Marcia would be cooking dinner. Chris would be watching cartoons. Tara, who was only a year old, would be in Marcia’s arms or in her wheeled walker.
Hours later, after the fingerprinting and phone call to Reed, husband and wife faced each other. Down a long tile corridor on an upper floor of the Norfolk courthouse, Marcia had heard his voice
and had asked to see him. They were left alone for a moment, a small act of kindness, in an office with a broad desk of polished oak and plush leather chairs. Lawbooks lined the shelves. Outside wide windows, dusk bathed in soft rose and orange the rooftops and streets of the city below. Marcia seemed calm and sad.
“I don’t blame you,” she told Larry, placing her hands on his. Tears had welled in Larry’s eyes and he could not speak. Marcia’s hands were cuffed. There were no tears in her almond eyes. She said, “I still love you.”
After that they rode together in the backseat of a government sedan to the prison in Virginia Beach. Larry kept seeing the handcuffs on Marcia’s hands, folded in her lap. He tried to put the picture out of his mind.
