The dean of students at a high school in western Massachusetts was arrested on Wednesday and charged with conspiring to traffic “large quantities of cocaine” after a nine-month investigation, federal authorities said.
The dean, Lavante Wiggins of Pittsfield High School in Pittsfield, Mass., and another man, Theodore Warren, were each charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Federal prosecutors said that Mr. Warren, 42, served as a “runner” delivering the drug for Mr. Wiggins.
Mr. Wiggins, 30, made an initial appearance in federal court in Springfield, Mass., on Wednesday afternoon; he has not yet entered a plea. A lawyer representing him did not immediately respond to a phone call or an email.
Joseph Curtis, the superintendent of Pittsfield Public Schools, said in a statement on Wednesday that Mr. Wiggins had been placed on immediate administrative leave, according to The Berkshire Eagle.
Pittsfield, a city of 43,000 people in the largely rural Berkshires region of Massachusetts, has lost jobs and population since an enormous General Electric plant that once employed thousands shut down in the 1980s. Its high school enrolls about 700 students; more than half are considered low income, according to state data.
On the Facebook page for Pittsfield High School, a post from April 2021 welcomed Mr. Wiggins as the new dean of students. Dozens of commenters enthusiastically applauded the announcement. “Great hire!” one posted. “This news made my day.”
A high school dean of students is an administrator who works under the principal and may manage student behavior and discipline, while building relationships with students.
When the former principal of Pittsfield High School, Henry Duval, retired two years ago, he told a local news outlet that his decision had been easy knowing that “an outstanding group of young administrators,” including Mr. Wiggins, “have made strong connections with our student population.”
Reached by phone, a woman whose name matched one listed as a family member on a Facebook page that appeared to be Mr. Wiggins’s declined to speak to a reporter.
According to an affidavit with the criminal complaint, investigators used surveillance of phone calls and text messages to track Mr. Wiggins’s activities, as well as information from a confidential source with multiple felony convictions who bought drugs from him. The source agreed to cooperate with the F.B.I. in exchange for the possible reduction of his own sentence, the affidavit said.
In spite of the source’s criminal record, investigators said they believed that the information he provided was reliable because much of it “has been corroborated through independent investigations, controlled purchase of narcotics, and consensually recorded conversations,” the affidavit said.
Mr. Wiggins voiced concern in August that he might be under investigation, federal prosecutors said, and told Mr. Warren that he would send him to complete drug sales and deliveries. These included four separate sales to one customer between September and December, totaling more than 450 grams of cocaine.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Wiggins agreed to provide the drugs to the customer on credit, and that the customer accumulated more than $34,000 in debt, which Mr. Wiggins and Mr. Warren then set out to collect.
If convicted, the men face up to 20 years in prison, up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $1 million, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said in a statement.
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