i am./was good friends with Matt Mclaughlin ...............Kevin McGaunn also (he managed Jimmy Decotis's Gyms/nautilus plus danvers where i also trained)
Worlds Somervilla was Pat Catino's gym .............(i got to know pat when i was working/bouncing at The Palace in saugus)
is it Eric Caswell?
(i worked with him at Tantra in saugus/after-hours club and Caruso's Diplomat)
Mike I thought Mclaughlin got into boatloads of trouble?
Drug supplier gets 30 months
By Lee Hammel TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
lhammel@telegram.com
WORCESTER— A bodybuilder who supplied a drug ring that included two police officers and a businessman was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court to 30 months in prison — less than half the minimum sentence that federal sentencing guidelines call for.
Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV cited “diminished capacity” in Matthew McLaughlin, 35, of Kittery Point, Maine, as well as a criminal record that overstates how serious a threat Mr. McLaughlin is, in letting Mr. McLaughlin escape the 70 to 87 months advised by the federal guidelines. The 2-1/2 years to which Judge Saylor sentenced Mr. McLaughlin was less than the 5 years Assistant U.S. Attorney George W. Vien asked for, although more than the “time served” — about 17 months — that defense lawyer Janice Bassil suggested.
Mr. McLaughlin at one time scored 67 on an IQ test — mildly retarded, Ms. Bassil said — and attempted suicide when he was 12 because of mental disorders. Virgil Lynch, Mr. McLaughlin’s uncle from Island Falls, Maine, who was not permitted to speak during the sentencing hearing, said afterward that seven of his cousins committed suicide.
While Judge Saylor said he “has some doubt” that Mr. McLaughlin, who attended college and has succeeded at other tasks, is mildly retarded, he said he believes Mr. McLaughlin has enough history of mental illness to be considered to have diminished capacity. The judge also said it was rare for someone with such an extensive criminal history — which includes driving under the influence of alcohol and uttering false prescriptions — to have no record of violence or threats or property damage.
Ms. Bassil said that Mr. McLaughlin never viewed GBL, the drug to which he pleaded guilty of conspiracy to distribute, as a recreational drug or a date rape drug. She said he began bodybuilding at age 16 and once won the Mr. Teenage America title.
“The reality of bodybuilding is the use of steroids,” she said, and Mr. McLaughlin believed what she called the myth that steroids help to build muscles — a problem that she noted continues to be rampant in professional sports nationally and internationally. Ms. Bassil said that he was given the drug by the people who trained him in bodybuilding, beginning when he was a teenager.
Ms. Bassil said Mr. McLaughlin bought the GBL — a drug he started using before it became illegal in 2000 — that he supplied to his codefendants on the Internet and was not sophisticated enough to convert it into the more dangerous drug of GHB that bodybuilders seek.
Judge Saylor fined the defendant $1,000 and ordered him to be under probationary supervision for three years upon release from prison, saying that his main concern in giving Mr. McLaughlin so little prison time that the Bureau of Prisons will not admit him to a 500-hour drug rehabilitation program is that he needs rehabilitation and strict structure.
Mr. Vien, the prosecutor, urged a sentence of 10 months under the guideline minimum, because of Mr. McLaughlin’s diminished capacity and record, acknowledging it is unusual to recommend a break for the supplier rather than the distributor in a drug ring. But he said that co-defendant Thomas J. Vigliatura “is the most evil” in this case. Mr. Vigliatura, also a bodybuilder, has pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and four counts of distribution of the drugs GHB and GBL.
Mr. Vigliatura, who is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 15 on those charges, was sentenced last week to six months for contempt of court and previously allegedly threatened to call a hit man to get Mr. Vien to back off the prosecution. The government intends to seize $50,000 from Mr. Vigliatura; his former business, T Vig’s Sports Supplements Unlimited, 98 West Boylston St.; and his former home at 118 Santoro Road.
Former Worcester police Officer Brian W. Benedict, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute GHB and conspiring to possess cocaine and Ecstasy, is scheduled to be sentenced tomorrow. Former Worcester police Officer Heriberto Arroyo, who was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to possess GHB and GBL and conspiracy to possess cocaine and Ecstasy, is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 30.
Mr. McLaughlin pleaded guilty to a single count of distributing GBL, a substance that can be converted into GHB, which is considered to be a date rape drug and an aid to bodybuilding.
Mr. Vien told the judge that a 5-year sentence is “not a life-destroying sentence” and would give Mr. McLaughlin a chance to get his life together in prison, while Ms. Bassil contended that it would destroy his life. Mr. McLaughlin briefly addressed Judge Saylor before the sentence, saying he has trouble speaking but “give me a chance to be back with my family.”
Link:
http://www.telegram.com/article/20070731/NEWS/707310588/1008/NEWS02
