Southampton - Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota announced the arrest of 23 suspects in a "Table Top" heroin distribution organization spanning Suffolk County, Nassau County, Queens and Bronx Counties.

District Attorney Spota identified a Ricardo Rifino Jr., 29, of East Johnson Avenue, Sayville, as one of three suspects indicted by a grand jury on the A-1 felony charge of operating as a major drug trafficker. Rifino sent his runners into New York City to buy approximately 2,000 bags of heroin every other week to sell to multiple heroin users in Suffolk County," DA Spota said. Rifino is also indicted for second degree conspiracy to distribute.

"Mr. Rifino is a prior felony offender, out on bail, awaiting formal sentencing to three years in state prison for a prior conviction for heroin possession and his re-arrest now subjects him to a lengthier sentence on that case, apart from the prison time he faces in today's indictment," District Attorney Spota noted. Suffolk County narcotics detectives executing a search warrant at Rifino's Sayville house last fall (74 East Johnson Avenue) seized approximately 2,500 bags of heroin and $80,000 in cash, recovered from a shoe box.

Two other defendants charged with operating as a major drug trafficker are Carlos Melendez of the Bronx and Joel Guzman of Ridgewood, Queens, two men who operated a stash house in Corona, Queens, where heroin was cut, packaged and prepared for street sales in Suffolk County. Melendez and Guzman, according to information gathered during the investigation, purchased raw, uncut heroin from Frank Conte of the Bronx. Conte, 29, of Pelham Parkway, is a major supplier who was free on a $1million bond for a 2007 murder in the Bronx.

"The organization run by Melendez and Guzman supplied approximately 15,000 bags per week to Suffolk heroin users," Spota said. "Over the course of this 16-month investigation their distribution network brought approximately a million bags of heroin into Suffolk County." Melendez and Guzman are also charged with second degree conspiracy, second degree criminal sale and first degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, and other charges.

Heroin prepared for sale in glassine bags at the Queens stash house was stamped "Sweet Death", "Starbucks" and "Kneebender." Five-thousand bags of heroin and 200 grams of raw heroin were seized at the stash house, along with two loaded hand guns and packaging materials.

"We all know that drug dealers are heartless," DA Spota said, "but this investigation took that heartlessness to a new low - these dealers knew people were dying of heroin drug overdoses and they discussed these overdoses while arranging new deals."