01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, April 23, 2006

It was an unusual moment in law enforcement. Jeanette Smith sat in her bedroom with Detective Cal George of South Kingstown and Detective Jeffrey St. Onge of North Kingstown. They watched a video of a man searching the room they were in.

The man talked on a cell phone as he searched. That really galls Jeanette Smith -- the casual comfort the intruder assumed while running a hand through her underwear drawer.

She knew the man. She had dated him briefly. He was a family friend, someone who had easy access to the Smiths' house.

But he violated the family's trust and hospitality in a cruel way. What he was searching for, and eventually found, was Roxicet, a liquid painkiller that helps Wes Smith, Jeanette's 12-year-old son, get through one very hard day after another.

That's it. The guy stole pain medication from a very sick kid. Once he saw himself on video, there wasn't much left to say. Denial was not an option. So he lawyered up.

And he has not spent any time stabbing trash at the side of Route 95. He has not spent a day in the slammer. He made a deal.

Jeanette Smith had to come home from Washington County Superior Court two weeks ago and tell her son and her daughter, Rebecca, that David Reilly would not go to jail for coming into their house and stealing the medicine that Wes desperately needs.

"Do they not understand this kid suffered because of this?" she says in response to the court's decision.

Rebecca was angry, she says, but Wes didn't say much. He just shook his head and walked away. But on Wednesday, as his mother and I talked at the kitchen counter, he came in with a small, hand-held computer. He had written a brief, punchy description of Reilly on the screen.

There was a plate on the counter covered with syringes.

"That's just for the morning," said Jeanette.

There would be three more series of injections during the day.

Wes Smith underwent a heart transplant in 1998. There have been a lot of complications since, a lot of pain and uncertainty, the need for a feeding tube and a staggering lineup of medications.

Still, says Jeanette, her son has a great sense of humor. And he goes to school at Curtis Corner Middle School when he can.

"We have a phenomenal school system," she says. "They've bent over backwards for us."

She is a divorced mother and she likes the idea that her house is open to her kids' friends. There might be a dozen there at a given time.

David Reilly, who is 44 and also lives in Wakefield, took advantage of the open-door policy, too. He hung out at their house.

And last summer, Jeanette Smith started noticing that the amount of Roxicet she had on hand to treat her son was less than it should be. There were times when she gave it to Wes and it didn't provide the relief it was supposed to. She suspects it was diluted. The color seemed different when she held it up to the light.

She started marking the level of the medicine in the bottles.

"You know, like our parents used to do with the liquor bottles when they went out."

She took her suspicions to the South Kingstown police last September. They called the North Kingstown police since that department had recently purchased surveillance cameras.

Detective St. Onge says the equipment has been in use for about a year and can be very effective.

"We use it when the right situation presents itself," he said.

The situation in South Kingstown was the right situation. Cameras and a recorder were installed. Jeanette Smith left the house with her son.

"The next morning, they came over and looked," she says.

And what they saw was David Reilly finding a partially filled bottle of Roxicet and drinking it.

"This kind of thing happens all the time," said St. Onge. "Although someone stealing a child's medication, especially a child in dire need, is a little bothersome."

Reilly was charged with possession of a schedule II substance and two counts of larceny under $500.

"I wanted to know why there wasn't something in there about taking from a kid," says Jeanette Smith.

She went to the arraignment in February. Reilly pleaded not guilty.

She went to a pretrial conference a month later. She wanted to talk to the prosecutor.

"I went in with all of Wes' meds. I lined them up on the prosecutor's desk. I brought pictures of Wes on a good day and Wes on a bad day."

She made it clear she wanted him to serve time in jail.

"He needs to understand what he's done," she said of Reilly. "He can't leave here and just go out to lunch."

But on April 10, Reilly -- who was represented by lawyer William Murphy, who is Rhode Island's speaker of the House -- admitted to the theft and pleaded no contest to the charges. In return, he was given a three-year suspended sentence, three years' probation and 100 hours of community service by Judge Edward C. Clifton. He received a one-year suspended sentence and one year of probation for each of the larceny charges. He was ordered to undergo substance-abuse counseling.

It is not known where Reilly went to lunch after leaving the courthouse.

Last week, Wes Smith received a special invitation to watch the demolition of the Jamestown Bridge from the demolition company's barge. He was excited at the prospect.

"But he couldn't make it," said his mother. "There was just too much pain."

bkerr@projo.com / (401) 277-7252