Third Defendant Sentenced in Bonneville County Traffic Stop Meth Distribution Case

POCATELLO—Angelica Campos, 27, of Caldwell, Idaho, was sentenced today to 121 months in prison and fined $500 for conspiring to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced. U.S. District Judge Brian Ted Stewart of the District of Utah also ordered Campos to serve five years of supervised release following her prison term and to forfeit all property used to commit the crime and proceeds derived from the crime. Campos pleaded guilty to the charges on October 23, 2013.
According to court records, an Idaho State Police trooper stopped a vehicle being driven by co-defendant Noe Gonzalez on February 12, 2013, in Bonneville County. Campos was a passenger, and both she and Gonzalez were ultimately arrested. Pursuant to a search warrant, the vehicle was searched the next day. Hidden in the dash of the vehicle, police found a white tube sock containing four baggies of methamphetamine within a larger zip lock bag. The methamphetamine totaled 95.53 grams. Police also found a handgun and loaded magazine in the glove box. Recorded calls between Campos and her sister, Vanessa Campos, revealed that Vanessa Campos planned to get the vehicle out of police impound and recover the methamphetamine before it was discovered by law enforcement. By the time Vanessa Campos recovered the vehicle, the police had already located the drugs.
Vanessa Campos, 25, and Gonzalez, 29, both of Caldwell, Idaho, were sentenced in January to serve 47 months and 151 months, respectively, for their roles in the conspiracy.
The case was the result of an investigation by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), which included the cooperative law enforcement efforts of the Idaho State Police; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office; Idaho Falls Police Department; Madison County Sheriff’s Office; Rexburg Police Department; Bingham County Sheriff’s Office; Fremont County Sheriff’s Office; Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI); and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Other federal agencies participating in the OCDETF program include the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Marshals Service.
The OCDETF program is a federal multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional task force that supplies supplemental federal funding to federal and state agencies involved in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of major drug trafficking organizations.

Mexican National Sentenced for Trafficking Methamphetamine in East Texas

MARSHALL, TX—A 45-year-old Mexican national illegally residing in Marshall, Texas was sentenced to federal prison for drug trafficking violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney John M. Bales today.
Melicio Nunez-Duque, also known as La Burra, of Coyuca de Catalan, Guerrero, Mexico, pleaded guilty on January 30, 2013 to possession with intent to distribute and distribution of methamphetamine and was sentenced to 108 months in federal prison on February 18, 2014 by U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap. Nunez-Duque was also ordered to pay a money judgment in the amount of $20,000 to the United States as part of his sentence.
According to information presented in court, from July 2011 to October 2012, Nunez-Duque conspired with others to distribute methamphetamine in and around Marshall, Texas. Nunez-Duque admitted to distributing 15 grams of methamphetamine on July 27, 2011 and another 14 grams on October 27, 2011 in Marshall, Texas. He also admitted to directing others to distribute methamphetamine on August 4, 2011 and August 24, 2011. He admitted the value of the methamphetamine distributed was at least $20,000. A federal grand jury returned an indictment on October 3, 2012 charging Nunez-Duque and co-defendants Julia Flores Saucedo and Oscar Diaz-Mendoz with federal drug trafficking violations.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Marshall Police Department, and the Harrison County District Attorney’s Office and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Allen Hurst.

Rehoboth Man Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison for Methamphetamine Trafficking and Firearms Conviction

ALBUQUERQUE—MacDavis Bahe, 31, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who resides in Rehoboth, New Mexico, was sentenced this morning to 10 years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for his conviction on methamphetamine trafficking and firearms charges.
Bahe was indicted in June 2012 and charged with distributing methamphetamine and marijuana in McKinley County, Rehoboth, New Mexico between February 2012 and May 2012. He also was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of an unregistered firearm.
On September 6, 2013, Bahe admitted that he distributed methamphetamine on February 17, 2012 to an individual who, unbeknownst to him, was an undercover officer. Bahe also admitted that he unlawfully possessed a shotgun on May 1, 2012. Bahe acknowledged that he was prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition because he previously had been convicted of the following felony offenses in the 11th Judicial District Court for the State of New Mexico in McKinley County: burglary, aggravated fleeing from a law enforcement officer, and being a felon in possession of a firearm or destructive device.
The case was investigated by the Albuquerque office of the FBI, the Middle Rio Grande Valley Narcotics Task Force, the Gallup Police Department, and the Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elaine Y. Ramirez.
The Middle Rio Grande Valley Task Force is comprised of agents and officers from the Albuquerque Police Department, the Albuquerque office of the DEA, Pojoaque Tribal Police Department, Rio Rancho Police Department, Sandoval County Sheriff’s Office, and Valencia County Sheriff’s Office. It is part of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program that was created by Congress with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. HIDTA is a program of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) which provides assistance to federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug trafficking regions of the United States and seeks to reduce drug trafficking and production by facilitating coordinated law enforcement activities and information sharing.

Randy Rider Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Distribution of Methamphetamine

The United States Attorney’s Office announced that during a federal court session in Great Falls, on February 6, 2014, Randy Lee Rider, 47, of Klamath Falls, Oregon, was sentenced to a term of 120 months’ imprisonment and five years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Brian M. Morris.
Rider was sentenced in connection with his November 21, 2013 guilty plea to distribution of methamphetamine. In an offer of proof filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Betley, the government stated it would have proved that beginning in January 2013, undercover agents began to buy methamphetamine from Devan Kelly. The defendant supplied Kelly with methamphetamine. These sales progressed, and in April, agents inquired into whether Kelly would sell them a pound of methamphetamine. Kelly agreed to sell a pound of methamphetamine for $23,000, but he first had to contact his supplier, the defendant. Kelly and the agents then agreed the sale would take place in Lewistown, Montana, on April 29, 2013.
Just prior to the deal on April 29, 2013, Kelly met with the defendant to get the methamphetamine. The sale then took place, and Kelly gave undercover agents the pound of methamphetamine. This methamphetamine was tested and the laboratory concluded it was 99.5 percent pure and contained 439 grams of actual methamphetamine.
After Kelly’s arrest, agents followed the defendant to a house in Lewistown, where he was confronted and admitted he had been Kelly’s methamphetamine supplier, and had given Kelly the pound of methamphetamine to sell to the agents.
This investigation was conducted by the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force.

Family wants answers in man's mysterious death in Texas

On a cold, rainy night in late November, Douglas Wright sat amid brambles and thick East Texas underbrush, watching over the body of his 28-year-old son, Alfred, who had disappeared almost three weeks earlier.
"His spirits got to me: 'Daddy, I knew you would find me,'" Wright says, recalling the relief that had washed over him.
Sabine County sheriff's deputies had searched for Alfred Wright but didn't find him, and volunteer searchers later found his body, his family says.
A medical examiner says the death was accidental, but the family rejects that notion, citing what a different pathologist says appears to be "severe trauma" to his body. The Texas Rangers and FBI are investigating.

Alfred Wright was last seen around dusk on November 7. The physical therapist was on his way to treat a patient. He had been having trouble with his pickup and pulled into CL&M Grocer, one of the few stores along an isolated stretch of Route 87.
He called his wife, Lauren, and gave her directions to the store. Because their two young sons were home sick, she called his parents, who immediately left on the hour long drive. What happened next changed everything.
"The last time I called him, I just heard heavy breathing. He was in distress of some sort. He was not responding to anything I was saying," Lauren Wright says.
Around 6 p.m., Alfred Wright disappeared from where he was last seen alive. When his parents arrived about 20 minutes later, his truck was in the parking lot, but he was nowhere to be seen. His father asked the store clerk what happened. He says she told him that she was out having a smoke when Wright "all of a sudden put his cell phone in his sock and took off like the truck was going to blow up."
The clerk did not want to be interviewed on camera but did tell CNN that Wright "left on his own free will," a phrase she repeated several times.
The next day, his personal effects, including his watch and ID, turned up on a nearby ranch. Deputies searched the property with cadaver dogs. His family says it was told by the deputies that Wright's scent had "disappeared" at a nearby creek.
Four days after Wright vanished, Sabine County Sheriff Thomas Maddox called off the search, telling the family, "Your son's just a missing person. My guys are tired. We've exhausted our resources and funds. We're done," family lawyer Ryan MacLeod says.
Family members say the sheriff told them that "there was no foul play" and that Wright's disappearance was probably "drug-related," most likely related to methamphetamine.
The sheriff's daughter and Wright apparently knew each other through their health care jobs, which made the sheriff's actions even more surprising to the Wrights, who were left to search for their son on their own.
He had been missing for 19 days when, during Thanksgiving week, dozens of volunteers did their own search in the cold and rain. Wright's body was found nearly three weeks after his truck broke down, in an area of the ranch supposedly already searched by deputies.
'He was neatly laid'
Walking to the spot, Douglas Wright describes the position in which his son lay: "His head was in this area, and his feet was back here. He was just, if I might say, he was neatly laid. He was neatly laid."
Alfred Wright was wearing only boxer shorts, tennis shoes and a single sock, inside of which was his cell phone, just as the clerk had described. The second sock was under the body. "I was told by the mortician at the autopsy that when they pulled off his left sock, his keys was under his left foot in his shoe," his father says.
"What was weird about his sock," says his father, is that it "was clean, and his sock was pulled up with his phone stuck in it as if he was in a Sunday school class. Neat. His tennis shoes was very clean."
And not just the position of the body seemed strange. "This is the first thing I noticed -- how smooth his forearms and his back was. No scratches at all," his father says. After just one day, he and the other volunteers were caked in mud and their clothing torn from brambles, he says.
Alfred Wright was missing an ear, two front teeth, and his throat appeared to be cut. The medical examiner attributed the trauma to "animal and insect activity." What's more, in an echo of the sheriff's prediction, the coroner's toxicology report described Wright's body as filled with drugs -- cocaine, meth and amphetamines. His death was ruled "accidental" due to a "combined drug intoxication."
His family doesn't believe it. Family members say they never saw him do drugs, nor had his personality changed to suggest he was using drugs. They say he was the fun-loving, hardworking father he had always been. They want to know if the drugs entered his body while he was missing.
Suspicious of the investigation, the family hired their own pathologist, who ultimately did a separate autopsy and, contrary to the medical examiner, found what appears to be "severe trauma to the neck and head."
A month after Wright's body was found, Maddox handed the investigation over to the Texas Rangers. They have called the death "questionable" and say the autopsy is just one part of an active investigation. The week CNN was in Sabine County, the Texas Rangers announced they had called in the FBI to assist.
After Alfred Wright's death, wife Lauren went through bank records. She found three charges her husband made at local hotels when she and the children were away the month before he died. Texas Rangers are pulling video from one of the hotels to review it for possible evidence.