Man sentenced to work program in heroin case
BY BILL BIRD wbird@stmedianetwork.com December 6, 2012 8:22PM
Joseph Scarpelli has been charged with selling heroin. | Courtesy of Naperville Police Department
Updated: January 8, 2013 6:33AM
A man from Glen Ellyn has been ordered to serve in a DuPage County work program, after being convicted of possessing heroin last year in a case broken by Naperville police.
Joseph G. Scarpelli, 33, pleaded guilty in DuPage County Circuit Court to a felony charge of possession of a controlled substance. The plea was accepted by Judge Kathryn E. Creswell, according to court records.
Creswell on Nov. 27 ordered Scarpelli to serve 10 days in the Sheriff’s Work Alternative Program, or SWAP, records indicated. She also placed him on two years of probation and assessed fines and legal costs totaling $1,620, records showed.
Undercover Naperville police officers on Oct. 20, 2011 arrested Scarpelli on the 400 block of West Front Street, near the Metra Railway commuter train depot in downtown Wheaton.
Naperville police Sgt. John Westlove said Scarpelli was targeted last year by members of the department’s Special Operations Group, after they received information he was dealing in heroin.
Police conducted “a covert investigation” of Scarpelli, arranging several meetings with him at various locations in Naperville, Westlove said last year. Investigators made a number of purchases of heroin over several months, he said.
Westlove did not know the total amount of heroin Scarpelli sold to police or its estimated street sale value.
Scarpelli has been arrested or ticketed numerous times in DuPage County for traffic-related offenses, but had no prior criminal record.
