Mother and three kids, Brian McLaughlin's son nabbed in Queens gay bar drug bust

Thursday, April 22nd 2010, 4:00 AM

Gabel for News

An apartment at 22-34 Parsons Blvd in Queens (the right side apartment) where a mother and her 3 children allegedly sold drugs.

 

Disgrace labor leader Brian McLaughlin's son and dozens of others were busted in a takedown of a sprawling network of pill-pushers working out of a Queens gay club.

The defendants - including a mother and her two sons and 16-year-old daughter, a club owner and a bartender - dealt in prescription painkillers like Vicodin and Oxycodone and street drugs like Ecstasy and pot.

Robert McLaughlin, 26, faces nine years in prison for allegedly selling pharmaceuticals out of his Sunnyside apartment.

Brian McLaughlin, 57, is serving 10 years for stealing $3.1 million from Little Leaguers, lawmakers and his own union while a Queens assemblyman.

His son was snared in a two-year NYPD probe of two loose-knit drug rings that sold mountains of pills prized by partiers - including the animal tranquilizer Ketamine, the stimulant Adderall and heroin substitute Suboxone.

"Drugs such as Vicodin and Oxycodone are extremely potent and have a high potential for abuse and death," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Those nabbed include Kathleen Olsen, 56, of Whitestone, who allowed her son Christopher, 26, to use their home as a base to sell Xanax and other prescription pills.

Also arrested were Olsen's younger son, Sean, 23, and a 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.

The family had ties to a second drug-dealing cabal run by Hi Kim, who allegedly sold thousands of pills to undercover cops working on "Operation Bad Medicine."

Kim, in turn, was linked to the owner of the Mix Cafe & Lounge, a popular gay bar in Astoria that was being used as a staging ground for drug buys, officials said.

The owner Javier Leon, 42, is accused of selling a cop $1,400 worth of cocaine and 80 Vicodin pills at his Long Island City apartment last year.

Bartender Stefan Sweeting, 27, sold undercover officers Ecstasy and pot on four occasions over the past two years, prosecutors say.

Search warrants at various locations turned up three loaded handguns, a large stash of marijuana, thousands of pills and $20,000 in cash.

"The combination of drugs and guns is a clear prescription for violence," said NYPD Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Robert McLaughlin is expected to appear in Queens Supreme Court for an arraignment Thursday.

THOMAS ZAMBITO