Anti-Heroin Advocate Arrested For Dealing

(CBS) -- He's a recovering heroin addict who tried to turn his life around, was a member of a heroin support group and spoke out against heroin on CBS' 48 hours. But he's in big trouble with the law for allegedly trying to sell it to a police officer.

CBS 2's Dana Kozlov has his story.

"I would tell myself I could stop when I wanted to," said Peter Rundo earlier this year - talking about his heroin use on CBS's '48 hours'.

"Sometimes I would sell to support my habit," Rundo said.

Selling is what landed the 21-year-old Naperville man in jail last week. Rundo is now charged with dealing heroin to undercover cops.

Caroline Kacena says that when she heard he had been arrested, "Part of me was disheartened but I know that he had been struggling."

Kacena has known Rundo since he was a little boy. He and her son were lifelong friends, until John died of a heroin overdose last year.

"What has happened to him is not the Peter that any of us would have imagined seeing him grow up," said Kacena.

Before his arrest, Kacena says Rundo tried to get clean. He even posted on 'Open Hearts, Open Eyes', a heroin awareness forum on Facebook.

But the deputy director of the Joliet Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad says Rundo sold heroin to officers three times over the past month - all deals taking place near Route 59 and 95th Street in Naperville - about a quarter mile from Nequa Valley High School. Rundo told police he's been using, again.

"I'm just relieved Peter is alive and he is safe," said Kacena.

Police say many suburban heroin dealers are addicts themselves. That, they say, only complicated the skyrocketing heroin problem.