Enviro worker’s home a drug den

A city Department of Environmental Protection employee was doing anything but protecting the environment when he turned his Long Island home into a drug factory to produce ecstasy and grow marijuana, officials said Wednesday.

Prosecutors said Joseph Guida, 45, pleaded guilty to charges that he used his Suffolk County residence to illegally grow and produce the drugs for more than five years.

Federal officials said Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted a package from China to Guida’s apartment in Queens.

They said the package contained PMK, an ecstasy precursor. Homeland Security Investigations agents then questioned Guida, an electrician, and he admitted that he ordered the PMK from China and used the Mastic residence as an ecstasy lab and marijuana grow-house, officials said.

A search of the Mastic residence by law enforcement agents, some wearing protective hazmat suits, revealed chemicals and laboratory equipment for manufacturing ecstasy, as well as nearly 40 marijuana plants and about 1.3 kilograms of processed pot.

“Guida turned a house in a residential neighborhood into a drug factory, with total disregard for the danger posed to his neighbors by the volatile chemicals used to manufacture ecstasy,” said U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue.

Guida, who earned more than $114,000 from the city, according to payroll records, faces up to 20 years in prison. As part of his guilty plea, Guida agreed to forfeit his interest in the Mastic residence and a Dodge Durango that he used in connection with his drug operation, officials said.