http://www.eagletribune.com/news/stories/20030405/SP_007.htm
Defenseman Kaspars Astashenko, who was arrested early Wednesday morning in Lawrence on heroin possession charges, was not at the game. The team had no comment on his whereabouts, his status with the organization, or the arrest itself. Team president Jim Leahy said, "It's a police matter and is being treated as such. We will make a statement when we see fit." ... Sunday's season finale at home against Manchester is sold out. Leahy said that there will be standing room tickets available, however.
http://www.eagletribune.com/news/stories/20030403/SP_002.htm
Lock Monsters player arrested on heroin charge
By Jim Patten
Staff Writer
LAWRENCE -- A defenseman with the Lowell Lock Monsters hockey team who has also played in the National Hockey League was arrested on heroin possession charges, police said.
Kasparas Astashenko, 28, of 119 Thoreau Way, was found with two packets of heroin in his pants pocket when officers stopped him Tuesday night, police said. He was arrested and charged with possession of heroin, as well as trespassing.
Thomas J. Rowe, the team's assistant coach and director of hockey operations, said Astashenko will not be suspended until the team completes its own investigation.
"We don't have all the facts," Rowe said yesterday. "So until we do, we have no comment."
Astashenko has been with the Lock Monsters since 2001. He also played in the NHL with the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 1999-200 season.
Detective Timothy Dube said he and Detective Brian Burokas were contacted Tuesday at 11 p.m. by Officer Thomas Murphy. He told them he saw two men sitting in a parked car in front of a rooming house at 248 Broadway, and that a resident of the house told him the two men were looking for drugs.
Dube said he and Burokas went to the area and watched the two men and also called in detectives William Colantuoni, Robert DiBenedetto and Carlos Cueva.
DiBenedetto and Cueva entered a store to continue the surveillance nearby, and Colantuoni followed one of the two men, later identified as Astashenko, as he met a woman and then walked with her to a convenience store at Broadway and Cross streets.
Dube said Astashenko used the automatic-teller machine, and he and the woman walked back toward 248 Broadway, then to another rooming house at 575 Common St.
Police said the woman with Astashenko spoke with a man at 575 Common St., and all three walked to the rear of that building and out to Valley Street, where they stopped briefly and then parted. The man and woman walked toward Franklin Street while Astashenko walked back toward the officers while he spoke on his cell phone.
The officers stopped Astashenko on Broadway and he told them he and his friend were looking for female escorts and he had met a woman who told him to call her. He showed the officers a phone number written on a torn piece of paper.
Astashenko was arrested for trespassing on the property at 575 Common St., and while he was being searched, the detectives found two small packets of heroin in his pocket, police said.