http://journalstar.com/news/local/911/woman-arrested-with-more-than-an-ounce-of-meth-hidden/article_0adb9acb-16ea-5cd1-81ec-b327e25e2b46.html

The Lawrence County Sheriff said agents observed a “zip lock type” bag of ICE – a pure, powerful form of meth –  fall from the crotch area of a woman they were taking into custody on drug charges in the Kitchen Mill Community.

Agents also said that the woman, 29-year-old Misty Dawn Powell of Decatur, told them she had several other bags of ICE concealed in her vagina.

Powell’s arrest came after deputies were investigating reported drug activity in Kitchen Mills. On a tip, agents contacted 28-year-old Cody Kube at his home. During a pat-down, Lawrence County Sheriff Gene Mitchell said his agents located a small bag containing ICE.

Agents said Kube told them he did not use the ICE, but was planning to sell it to pay for food for his family since he recently lost his job.

Three other people were inside the home with Kube at the time, including Powell. A search of her purse revealed a straw with power residue. Sheriff Mitchell said Powell originally denied owning the straw. However, agents were familiar with Powell from a prior investigation that lead to drug charges being filed against her. Further investigation of the purse revealed additional items commonly used to package or consume drugs.

Both Powell and Kube are being held in the Lawrence County Jail without bond. Kube was being held pending a possible community corrections violation. Power was being held on a motion to revoke a previous bond that was issued for her.

http://www.waaytv.com/news/decatur/sheriff-bag-of-meth-falls-from-woman-s-crotch-during/article_4ca02170-7ba0-11e6-b9be-335714e5267d.html

MUNCIE, Ind. — Police say a Muncie man and woman gave a teenager heroin and meth. The man is also accused of sexually assaulting the girl while she was under the influence of the drugs.

William Edward Chalfant, 29, of the 2100 block of South Arlington Road, was arrested Thursday on preliminary charges of rape, neglect of a dependent, attempted child exploitation and theft.

Chalfant’s aunt, Michelle Dawn Pfoutz, 34, of the 2400 block of South Vine Street, was also arrested on preliminary charges of battery resulting in serious bodily injury, strangulation, neglect of a dependent and theft.

In an affidavit, city police investigator Kristofer Swanson wrote the alleged victim in the case was brought to the emergency department at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital in early August, “hallucinating and going through severe withdrawal.”

The girl said she had spent several days with Pfoutz and Chalfant, and was given heroin and meth, “continuing to keep her high through the time she was staying with them.”

She said they took her to local drug houses during her “eight-day binge,” at one point injecting her with a “speed ball,” a combination of meth and heroin.

She said Pfoutz “attempted to get her to have sex and give nude massages in exchange for money.”

The girl also said Pfoutz had choked her until she lost consciousness.

Swanson reported the girl’s cellphone contained text messages from Chalfant in which he apologized for having sex with the teen.

Chalfant also sent the teen — who is under the age of 18 — photos of his genitals, the document said.

When interviewed by police, Chalfant  “admitted to supplying (the girl) with heroin to keep her from going through withdrawal.”

Pfoutz, meanwhile, denied “any knowledge of drug use,” he wrote.

Chalfant was being held in the Delaware County jail on Friday under a bond of $80,000. Pfoutz’s bond was set at $40,000.

http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/crime/2016/09/16/police-teen-given-drugs-sexually-assaulted/90497568/

MUNCIE, Ind. – Muncie authorities say Michelle Pfoust and William Chalfant kept a teenage relative trapped in a drug-induced stupor for eight days.

According to court documents, the 17-year-old victim told investigators she initially only wanted to smoke marijuana with them, but was pressured into using harder drugs like meth and heroin.

Court documents also reveal that during those eight days, Pfoust and Chalfant took their young family member to area drug houses, where she was encouraged to perform sex acts in exchange for money. The victim told investigators things were a blur during what she described as an “eight-day binge” and also told authorities at one of the houses she was shot up with a speedball, which is meth and heroin combined. At one point, Chalfant is also alleged to have had sex with the teenage victim.

“You know it’s just an ongoing struggle,” said Investigator Kris Swanson, of the Muncie Police Department.

Authorities say this is just one example out of many related to families and drug abuse that are happening more and more around Muncie and Indiana.

“Its just an ongoing effort,” said Swanson, “for law enforcement and social services to just combat that.”

The victim was eventually taken to a hospital with withdrawal symptoms so severe she was put into ICU. Pfoust and Chalfant are behind bars facing a number of felony charges including neglect of a dependent and theft. Chalfant also faces a charge of rape.

Police: Relatives kept teen high on meth, heroin for 8 straight days

Forty-five-year-old Shane looks like a man you wouldn’t want to mess with.

Heavy set, tattooed, he has scars where once he smashed a wall in a P-fuelled rage, and another time he attacked a mate with a wheelbrace when he had pinched one of Shane’s smokes.

Shane (not his real name) and his mates used to get “fried” on meth and watch episodes of Breaking Bad and laugh, “because it was like a comedy to us”.

In the downtown Tauranga cafe where we meet, an elderly woman comes over to ask Shane to unscrew the top off a bottle, saying, “You look like you have muscles, dear, can you help me with this?”

When she moves away, Shane chuckles, baring missing teeth. “If only she knew.”

In the years Shane was addicted to meth, he admits he was violent, involved in crime, and “lost his morals”.

Those in his circle met various fates over the years “some got busted, went to prison. Lost custody of their kids. Disappeared. Overdosed…”

Addicted to methamphetamine on and off since he was 26, Shane has now been clean for eight years, has turned his life around, gone to university and works in the alcohol and drug addiction sector.

Meth is is not a game, this is not Breaking Bad … this is not a drug you can mess around in thinking it is just fun. It will get you. It will take you down dark places you couldn’t even dream existed in your worst nightmares.

Shane

He wanted to share his story at a time when he said the region is in the grip of the worst meth epidemic he has seen, far worse he says than back in 2007 when he was an associate “meth cook”, filling capsules to supply. His good friend, the “main cook”, worked from his rural farm.

It was a world, he said, in which guns and other weapons were the norm.

“I had guns, and a crossbow … in the farm there were guns everywhere, and cameras. You get paranoid.”

The farm where his friend cooked up large quantities of methamphetamine just looked like any other rural property he said.

“If you went up the lane you would never know … but inside there were containers and containers of it. That was his full-time job, cooking it … and he was good at it. He would mainly cook for rich business clients. He would make $50,000 a week easy and that was on a slow week … he had one guy, a business guy who would buy an ounce a week at $20,000.”

Shane said the meth scene was not about guys wearing gang patches.

“Sure, some people are involved in gangs, but the big players are business people.”

Shane says he never cooked himself, but would fill capsules “of freshly cooked stuff” for his own use, and to on-sell.

“I don’t know how many I would make, I was so frizzled, I would be just filling them and filling them. I didn’t care really as long as I had enough.

“I had no soul … I did bad things. I hurt my parents. I stole, lied, cheated, hurt people.”

He had first tried the drug when a flatmate offered it to him.

Sure, some people are involved in gangs, but the big players are business people.

Shane

“Back then I had never even heard of it. My flatmate put it in a glass of water and I drank it. I had this old ute that I had been doing up for ages. After I drank that water within 24 hours I had the whole thing cleaned up and painted. When I started coming down and he said, ‘mate do you want a bit more?’, I said, ‘hell yeah, this stuff is good.'”

At first he thought it made his life better. “I got things done, was good at my job.”

Soon he was taking 1g a day in water throughout the day. Within three months he was injecting. In three years he had lost huge amounts of weight, and his job, and had started to do house burglaries to fund his 3g-a-day habit.

He would have regular rages, including attacking a flatmate with a wheelbrace after he had pinched one of his smokes. Malnourished, and injecting in all parts of his body, he had a bleeding, pus-filled infection from a gaping wound in the back of his head. “I didn’t even remember how I got it.”

He ignored that, but couldn’t ignore a letter from his mother who pleaded with him to stop.

“She asked me what had happened to her boy, where had her son gone who used to talk and laugh. I cried solid for two days. I still have that letter, and pull it out now.”

He would try to stop using, but would be lured back in by friends.

“It was just everywhere, and that is the problem for kids today … that it’s even more around, so if you do become addicted, it is hard to get off it as it is just all around you.”

When his friend’s farm was raided by police, and Shane’s supply cut off, he “lost the plot” and punched the wall in a P-fuelled rage, breaking every bone in his hand.

“I lied to doctors but my family doctor who had known me since I was 10 wasn’t fooled. He put me on these pills. I thought they were for my arm, but they were anti-depressants.”

The doctor referred him to Hanmer Clinic for intense therapy but Shane said because it was outpatient, he was still tempted.

“In the end the doctor said to me, there is is no rehab in the Bay so why don’t you go to university. It was such an ‘out there’ thing to say, I thought he had started on the P too. But he told me that they need qualified people who have real understanding of what addicts go through.”

In the end, going to university saved Shane, as he started to move in different circles. He shifted back to his parents’.

“To get off P, you need the support of family, change your circle of friends, treatment, but also you have to want to do it … I was lucky I had my parents, without them I wouldn’t be here. Not everyone has that, so that [shows] we really do need a residential place here.”

Now 45, Shane is clean, his employer knows his history and he enjoys helping others in the throes of the addiction that took so many years of his own life away. He continues supervision and counselling himself.

“Any former addict can struggle … if you put it in front of me now, it would be hard.”

That is a worry for everyone he says in the Bay where meth is now “easier to score than cannabis, in half an hour, you can get it pretty bloody quick”.

As well as his visible scars, Shane has ongoing stomach and liver problems which doctors link to his years of drug use. He suffers from depression, and has never had a long-term relationship.

“Meth is is not a game, this is not Breaking Bad … this is not a drug you can mess around in thinking it is just fun. It will get you. It will take you down dark places you couldn’t even dream existed in your worst nightmares.”

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503343&objectid=11706551

A former Cape Girardeau pediatrician told a crowd of area law-enforcement officers Friday they may have a decision to make.

They may have to determine whether to allow children to keep teddy bears coated in methamphetamine contaminants that could make them sick, or allow them to keep the stuffed animals because they served as a comfort while they were being neglected by their addicted parents.

“A parent who is high on meth is not a good parent,” Dr. James Hoffman said. “I saw a story about parents who slept for days and did not feed their kids.”

The 32nd Judicial Circuit Court Juvenile and Missouri Children’s Division officers have become familiar with decisions related to removing children from homes where methamphetamine use is a regular reality.

Juvenile officer Randy Rhodes, a 32-year veteran in the field, said 383 children were placed in foster care in the 32nd circuit in 2016 — more than double a typical year.

Of the 275 children placed in foster care from Cape Girardeau, Rhodes said about 175 were removed because of drug use in the home, and methamphetamine is the top drug in the area.

“We’re hearing there’s no end in sight,” Rhodes said.

Rhodes enlisted Hoffman to speak during a training session for juvenile officers and the Missouri Children’s Division officers at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center so the officers could become familiar with symptoms of methamphetamine exposure in children.

Cape Girardeau law-enforcement officials said methamphetamine use has increased in the county, based on an increase in arrests.

In Cape Girardeau, the number of methamphetamine arrests nearly doubled from 2014 to 2015. SEMO Drug Task Force director Mark McClendon said almost all the methamphetamine in Southeast Missouri is imported from Mexico.

The influx of children exposed to methamphetamine is creating challenges for foster families, Missouri Children’s Division circuit manager Susan Bundy said.

Children who are exposed to methamphetamine in the womb are prone to tremors, seizures and sudden infant death syndrome, Hoffman said.

When those children grow into toddlers, they are prone to speech and language difficulties, hourlong temper tantrums and extremely aggressive behavior, Hoffman said. By the time those children are in elementary school, they often have trouble reading because of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia, and they are more prone to psychiatric disorders, Hoffman said.

Children also are exposed to methamphetamine by parents smoking the drug in the same environment. Bundy gave the example of a 10-year-old who tested positive for methamphetamine, although he had never seen his parents use the drug.

“It goes throughout the whole house; it’s on clothes,” Bundy said. “Meth users excrete chemicals when they sweat. When they pick up an infant, it could transfer.”

Hoffman differentiated between congenital and acquired methamphetamine exposure, parents using methamphetamine around their children. He gave lists of physical symptoms for acquired exposure from headache and nausea to jaundice and hallucinations with high amounts of contact with the drug. Harrison said children who suffer from acquired exposure are more prone to anxiety, depression and ADHD.

Long-term affects of chronic methamphetamine exposure still are being studied. But central nervous system damage, liver and kidney damage and cancer could be the result, Hoffman said. He defined chronic exposure as lasting four or more months. Juvenile officer Krystal McLane said some children suffer methamphetamine exposure for years before they are removed from a home.

“We haven’t watched these kids long enough,” Hoffman said of the need for further study.

Bundy expressed some concern about uniformly applying symptoms as Hoffman described. A Missouri Children’s Division officer may not know whether a child is being hyperactive and throwing hourlong temper tantrums because of a lack of discipline at home or because he was exposed to methamphetamine in the womb.

“We just don’t know, really,” Bundy said. “Is it meth, or environment instead?”

http://www.semissourian.com/story/2340160.html

http://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/missoula-man-arrested-for-plying-underage-girls-with-drugs-and/article_fd8c8712-3392-5cf6-96c0-b2f357df7e6a.html

Tunnels, catapults, drones, and manned semi-submersibles.

Breast implants, fake carrots, and puppies.

These are just a few examples of smuggling tactics used by Mexican and Central American organized crime groups to move illegal drugs and people across borders and past law enforcement. But they also exemplify the kinds of innovative behavior and problem-solving prowess that in other, legal contexts, such as Silicon Valley, often result in groundbreaking businesses.

However, reductionist and neocolonial theories of Mexican cartels have for too long hamstrung efforts to properly understand these complex entities and capture the vast potential therein, according to Dr. Rodrigo Nieto-Gomez. We, in essence, have failed to study these organizations within the right framework.

Nieto-Gomez, a research professor at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security and at the National Security Affairs Department of the Naval Postgraduate School, has spent much of his time over the last few years reconceptualizing our notion of this mysterious world. He has found that far from anything resembling The Godfather, the behavior of organized crime in Mexico more closely resembles the entrepreneurs and startups of Silicon Valley.

I caught up with Nieto-Gomez to talk about criminal entrepreneurship, the potential for capturing these innovation skills, and how organized crime in Mexico really works.

Motherboard: What are you currently working on?
Nieto-Gomez: My key research agenda right now is based on analyzing criminal entrepreneurship. When you see what it takes to smuggle drugs from Mexico to the US, those are the kinds of skill sets we go and admire at a maker’s faire in San Mateo [California]. You take a compressor and mix it with a potato gun and you start shooting cocaine or marijuana … over the border. It’s freaking amazing. It’s completely unhindered by regulation. If you want to see what true libertarian, Ayn Rand capitalism looks like, don’t look at the US, but Mexico, and specifically the drug cartels.

“Sorry Amazon, you aren’t the first to deliver products via drone.”

What kind of innovations are you expecting to see from drug traffickers in the next few years?
If you want to get funky and think about the future of drug smuggling: UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] or unmanned semi-submersibles. You can send them from Colombia or Venezuela and program the coordinates all the way to the US. If you send 10 of them and only one makes it, you are still making a hefty profit.

What we are actually seeing are off-the-shelf drones bringing payloads of cocaine. Sorry Amazon, you aren’t the first to deliver products via drone; the Gulf Cartel did it first. Cocaine is the perfect product for a drone payload. It’s compact, stable, and highly profitable.

Organized crime, and organized crime in Mexico especially, is often portrayed as a top-down enterprise. What have you found through your research regarding these “cartels” or organizations?
It’s not the one that Mario Puzo sold to us in TheGodfather, with the puppeteer’s hand controlling every puppet. I don’t think that’s a good representation of organized crime and I don’t think it ever was.

What we see in Mexico is more akin to Silicon Valley, and the relationship with venture capitalists and startups. You’re good at what you do so I’ll fund you. I’ll give you access to the narcotics, you sell them for me, and you make some money. Out of that money you hire somebody else to help. You start to create your small little enterprise. If one day one part of the operation is captured or killed it’s just one start-up. The different organizations in Mexico will have hundreds of operations like that operating at the same time and in the same chain.

So I imagine you see a lot of innovative potential in many of the kids who have already been absorbed into organized crime or exist on the peripheries of society?
Honoré de Balzac had this great saying that “behind every fortune there is a great crime”. Now, I don’t know about a great crime but certainly an act of deviance. If you do business like everyone else is doing business you will only be one more. Then we see the Steve Jobs, the Elon Musks, the Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerbergs that come and break the rules, sometimes literally.

Napster was a criminal activity, people went to prison for it. It was shut down by the Department of Justice. Hackers, ooooo, evil. Yeah, except that it opened up the business model to companies such as Netflix and Spotify.

Maybe the next Steve Jobs is a girl in Oaxaca.

Kids are fairly comfortable breaking the rules, especially in the tougher areas of most countries. Normally your challenge in the general population is to teach them entrepreneurship. The problem with the kids involved in organized crime isn’t teaching them entrepreneurship but rule-following, to come back from where they went when they went too far. But that’s a good place to be.

Maybe the next Steve Jobs is a girl in Oaxaca. Will she have the chance to expand and create or will she be trapped in a shitty job in a maquiladora because she didn’t have the opportunities and became stuck?

And what about the fighting of local gangs in the US? If there was one drug supplier—let’s take the Sinaloa Cartel as an example—to two gangs in the US, wouldn’t this single supplier bond them? Or at least inconvenience the Sinaloa Cartel?
Not necessarily. The one supplier doesn’t necessarily care as long as they are getting their drugs across the border. They don’t care if these gangs are killing each other. What we’ve seen time and time again in Mexico is that cartels will sell to rival gangs without a problem. You’ll have rival gangs buying from more than one supplier.

One way of thinking of that is that it isn’t the cartel that is selling it to them, it’s the cartel that is funding operations. It’s almost like the internet. You have packages that go from this computer to that computer. Frankly, I don’t care how it gets there. I just need it to get there. A lot of drug smuggling happens like that. I have a drug here and I’ll send it there. What happens in between, well, I really don’t care, at least not that much.

So I’ll be funding different chains. For example you have operations that specialize in smuggling on the US border. That’s all they do. Or I move drugs within Mexico, from Chiapas to Guadalajara; these are the famous plazas that are terribly misunderstood. A plaza is an area where X cartel has enforcement forces to limit mobility to competition. We think of them as territories and they are more like supply chains. These are not marching armies; these are UPS carriers. It’s about maintaining access to the highway system, for example. The reality though is that supply chains of competitors do overlap.

And is this when we can expect waves of violence in Mexico?
A lot of these fights we get, when the levels of violence spike in Mexico, it’s mostly because one member of one chain crossed the supply line of another member. One of the explanations of increases in violence becomes then not so much a matter of someone trying to take a plaza. It’s that somebody found another supplier and started piggybacking on the supply chain—they start moving drugs for more than one supplier.

But waves of violence tend to be complex phenomena and as such, they rarely have a single point of origin.

Don’t you think if people really knew the odds of being captured or killed while working as a drug dealer they might reassess their career choice?
But what are the odds of becoming the next Steve Jobs or Elon Musk? They are tiny. But they fuel the dreams of 90 something percent of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley that will probably fail. It’s ambition. These are low probability high reward kinds of environments. And that is highly ambitious behavior that you want to encourage. Those are the people that see a problem and don’t get deterred. They change everything.

One of the biggest missed opportunities on the War on Drugs is that we haven’t identified a way of filtering out these high-risk tolerant people that we are losing to organized crime. We aren’t providing any alternatives for them to take the exit and leverage some of the skill sets they acquired in a way that would be both high-risk and high-reward and also legal.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-drug-cartels-operate-like-silicon-valley-startups

Published from ZETA
Translated by El Wachito

Mexican police have found a ‘homemade cannon’ used to launch drugs across the border

According to the CNS (Comisión Nacional de Seguridad), the federal police seized a vehicle modified with a cannon that was used to launch packages of drugs across the Mexican Border.

LIVE OAK — Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office charged Kenneth Ray Barnhart on Sept. 8 with possession of Methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and stalking.

According to the police report, police were dispatched around 8:30 a.m. to investigate a suspicious green Honda parked across the street from the caller’s home.

When the police arrived they found two white males sleeping in the car. The officer ordered the men to get out and they allowed the officer to search the Honda, the report states.

The officer found three used hypodermic needles. One needle had a small amount of liquid inside and tested positive for Methamphetamine, the report states.

Later, the officer spoke with the caller who said Barnhart had been stalking her and showing up at her home uninvited.

According to the report, the caller was in a relationship with Barnhart. They have a child together, and the night before, he came by her home under the influence of a narcotic, the report states.

http://www.suwanneedemocrat.com/news/man-charged-with-stalking-meth-possession/article_64a42ee8-7cfd-11e6-b77d-8b9f64f99f3f.html

ASHEVILLE, NC (FOX Carolina) – Some of the counts for an Asheville man who was sentenced to at least four years in prison after being charged with rape have been dismissed, according to the Buncombe County District Attorney.

Justin Harley Goode, 19, was arrested in March of 2016 when he was charged with raping a 15-year-old in January and delivering methamphetamine to a minor, the report said. He plead guilty to a statutory sex offense crime on a child, according to the district attorney.

Goode was charged with:

• Two felony counts: Statutory sex offense of a child 15-year- old or younger by a defendant more than 4 years but less than 6 years older
• One count: Sale and delivery of a controlled substance to a minor

All other counts were dismissed pursuant to a negotiated plea exchange for Goode’s guilty plea in the statutory rape count.

Goode, at the time of the offense, was more than four years but less than six years older than the victim.

He will serve a term of imprisonment in the NC Division of Adult Corrections with a minimum active term of 50 months and a maximum active term of 72 months for the sexual assault, according to the report.

http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/33130352/report-some-counts-dropped-for-asheville-man-charged-with-rape-after-guilty-plea

ASHEVILLE, NC (WSPA) – An Asheville man will spend at least four years in prison for statutory sex offense, according to the Buncombe Co. District Attorney.

Bradley B. Letts sentenced Goode, 19 plead guilty to Statutory Sex Offense on a Child 15 Years Old or Younger by a Defendant more than 4 Years but Less than 6 Years Older.

On Monday, September 19, 2016, Jackson County Superior Court Judge sentence Goode to a minimum active term of 50 months and a maximum active term of 72 months for the Sexual Assault

“Drug facilitated sexual assault is perhaps the most insidious of sex crimes. We are gratified that this defendant was sentenced to prison, without requiring the minor-victim her to go through the additional trauma and humiliation of a public trial,” District Attorney Todd Williams said.

Goode was arrested March 28, 2016 and charged with raping a 15-year-old in January and delivering methamphetamine to the minor victim, according to the district attorney.

Goode was charged with one felony count of Statutory Sex Offense of a Child 15 Years Old or Younger by a Defendant more than 4 Years but Less than 6 Years Older, one felony count of Statutory Rape of a Child 15 Years Old or Younger by a Defendant more than 4 Years but Less than 6 Years Older and one count of Sale and Delivery of a Controlled Substance to a Minor.

All other counts were dismissed due to a plea exchange for Goode’s guilty plea in the Statutory Rape count.

Goode, at the time of the offense, was more than four years but less than six years older than the victim.

Man gets 4 years for statutory rape of teen

A PREGNANT convicted drug trafficker will give birth to her baby in prison after being sentenced to 12 months behind bars.

Bundaberg woman Jessica Anne Robertson, 24, faced the Bundaberg Supreme Court today where she pleaded guilty to selling methamphetamine to up to 20 customers during a three-month period.

After losing her job as a real estate agent, and in order to support her own drug addiction, Robertson’s trafficking began slowly in July 2014 but by August and September she was making a profit of up to $3000 a week.

When police raided the shed Robertson was living in on September 30, 2014 they found 5.9g of methamphetamine.

They also found tick sheets that showed Robertson was owed about $2300 by customers and owed her suppliers about $4500.

Records obtained by police showed 12,800 exchanges on Robertson’s phone relating to drug transactions during the three months.

However it was accepted that the quantity of drugs being trafficked was classed as street level.

A statement from Robertson’s mother outlined how she had watched her daughter’s downward slide into drug addiction to the point where Robertson had sores on her face and had alienated herself from the rest of her family.

The court heard when Robertson was aged about 18 or 19 she fell in with the wrong crowd and her life went downhill. However now pregnant and due in November, the court heard Robertson was committed to beating her drug habit and had spent three months in an intensive, live-in drug rehabilitation centre.

In sentencing Robertson to three years and nine months jail, suspended after 12 months, Judge Debra Mullins highlighted the letter from her mother.

“It must have been very difficult for her to describe her daughter as a junkie in order to rationalise your behaviour towards her while you were in the the throws of your addition to methamphetmine,” she said.

“Hopefully you will be able to use motherhood as another incentive to remain drug free.”

http://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/news/mum-to-be-jailed-for-dealing-meth/3091385/

JOHNSON COUNTY, Ind. – A Johnson County woman was arrested after she accidentally sent a text message to a New Whiteland police officer, offering to sell him meth.

The police department contacted the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, which began an undercover drug instigation. Undercover detectives continued texting with the woman, identified as Shelby R. Eicks, 19, and began setting up a drug deal, according to court documents.

Detectives met with Eicks twice to buy methamphetamine and prescription pain pills.

The first meeting was on Sept. 10. An undercover detective met with Eicks at a fast-food restaurant in New Whiteland to buy a half-ounce of methamphetamine for $575, court documents say. The two met again at a fast-food restaurant in Franklin on Sept. 15, where Eicks allegedly agreed to sell the undercover detective 17 prescription pain pills for $135.

After the second meeting, Eicks was taken into custody and charged with dealing methamphetamine and dealing a controlled substance. She faces up to 30 years in prison.

Johnson County teen charged with drug dealing after accidentally texting police officer

http://www.huntingtonnews.net/142116

MINFORD, Ohio — Ohio Highway State Patrol responded to a car wash Sunday, after receiving reports of a woman spray-painting an all-terrain vehicle.

Officers found an “active, one-pot methamphetamine lab” in the wash bay of the self-service car wash in Minford, according to the report posted on the Scioto County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.

Carrie Lynn Mizenko, 34, was arrested at the scene and charged with illegal manufacture of methamphetamine and other drug-related charges. Mizenko had an outstanding warrant for a previous meth manufacturing charge. She is being held on $177,500 bond at the Scioto County Jail.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/crime-law/police-woman-arrested-operating-meth-lab-car-wash/nsb3d/

This summer, Ankeny police investigated and arrested two different women for separate crimes involving minors at Autumn Ridge trailer park.

The alleged crimes, totaling 26 criminal charges, range from child endangerment, supplying alcohol and drugs to minors and sexually abusing a minor, according to police records.

For neighbors, the news about the women comes as a shock in what they call a typically quiet area.

“It used to be nice, but now, I’m not so sure,” said Megan Barraza, a mother who lives in Autumn Ridge.

Darcy Ann Duncan, 48, faces 23 criminal charges: one count of third-degree sexual abuse, 11 counts of distributing drugs to people younger than 18, eight counts of supplying alcohol to people younger than 18, one count of neglect or abandonment of a dependent person, one count of possession of a controlled substance – first offense, and one count of gathering where marijuana is used. She was also cited for possession of drug paraphernalia.

She was arrested Thursday and is at the Polk County Jail on a $1.4 million bail, according to jail records.

Criminal complaints filed in court against Duncan allege she held multiple parties at her home with the teenagers between June 1 and Aug. 24. Several teens told police Duncan would give or sell marijuana and alcohol to them at these parties. A 14-year-old girl also reported that Duncan sexually assaulted her, according to a criminal complaint.

Meanwhile, Melinda Bales, 39, was charged with three counts of child endangerment after she tested positive for methamphetamine, while running an unauthorized in-home daycare, according to court records. At least three children were under her care at her home between Aug. 8-26, according to police records. She was arrested and brought to the Polk County Jail on Sept. 8. She has since been released and has pleaded not guilty.

John Cisna, of Ankeny, just moved into Autumn Ridge three weeks ago.

“I don’t know what motivated her or prompted her to do it,” said Cisna, who lives near Duncan. “It’s just a shame that happens.”

Barraza, who’s lived in the area for a year and a half, said she’s seen people come in and out of Duncan’s residence, along with police officers.

Barraza said the bus stop for Autumn Ridge is located on Duncan’s lawn, and said she will no longer allow her children to exit the bus alone.

“We moved out here because it’s so quiet, but you have these two people in the same trailer park,” Barraza said. “I wasn’t worried before. I am now.”

Between 2015-16, six people made calls referencing disturbances at Duncan’s residence, all of them involving minors, according to police records. The calls ranged from a fight involving minors, a loud party, a dispute and a welfare check on a runaway juvenile.

In October 2015, Duncan was charged with harassment and assault after she “invited herself to a juvenile party,” where she pushed a girl, yelled at her and threatened to break the girl’s jaw after she made a comment about Duncan’s weight, according to a criminal complaint.

Bales pleaded guilty in 2013 to operating while under the influence – first offense, and two counts of consumption of alcohol in a public place.

“It’s a shame that one bad apple might attempt to destroy the reputation of the environment here, but the majority of people here are absolutely wonderful,” Cisna said.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2016/09/20/neighbors-surprised-drugs-sex-abuse-ankeny-trailer-park/90750348/

An Ankeny mom is accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl and providing drugs and alcohol to several other teenagers at parties at her home this summer.

Darcy Ann Duncan, 48, faces 23 criminal charges: one count of third-degree sexual abuse, 11 counts of distributing drugs to people younger than 18, eight counts of supplying alcohol to people younger than 18, one count of neglect or abandonment of a dependent person, one count of possession of a controlled substance-first offense, and one count of gathering where marijuana is used. She was also cited for possession of drug paraphernalia.

She was arrested Thursday and is at the Polk County Jail on a $1.4 million bail, according to jail records.

Criminal complaints filed in court against Duncan allege she held multiple parties with the teenagers at her home between June 1 and Aug. 24. Several teens told police Duncan would give or sell marijuana and alcohol to them at these parties.

A 14-year-old girl reported that Duncan had instructed two other children to hold the girl down, against her will, on Duncan’s bed, while Duncan performed a sex act on the girl by using a vibrator to touch the girl over the leggings she was wearing, according to a criminal complaint. The girl was eventually able to escape and go to another room in the house.

One of the children instructed to hold down the girl told police the same story that the victim did, the criminal complaint shows. Duncan admitted to investigators that she had owned the described vibrator at one time but said she threw it away, according to the complaint.

One 14-year-old told investigators that Duncan provided her with Bacardi rum and Coke for $15 and marijuana to smoke out of a glass bong for $11.

Another 14-year-old told investigators she also smoked marijuana out of a glass bong, provided by Duncan at Duncan’s house. This girl became sick and went to a hospital, where she tested positive for THC, a chemical found in marijuana, according to a criminal complaint.

It’s unclear how many teenagers were involved, but criminal complaints show at least 12 different victims, who are identified in the documents by their initials, not their names, because they are minors.

Some of these children went to either Centennial High School or Southview Middle School in Ankeny, according to the complaints.

Duncan admitted to investigators that the drugs and drug paraphernalia were hers, but she denied offering them to children, according to criminal complaints. With a search warrant, officers found marijuana and drug paraphernalia at Duncan’s home.

Duncan has been ordered by court to not have contact with anyone under age 18 while her case is pending.

This is not the first time Duncan has been arrested regarding her behavior at parties with teenagers, according to court records.

In October 2015, she was charged with harassment and assault after she “invited herself to a juvenile party,” where she pushed a girl, yelled at her and threatened to break the girl’s jaw after she made a comment about Duncan’s weight, according to a criminal complaint.

Duncan was sentenced to one year in jail in that case, with jail time suspended as she was on probation with conditions.

Her new charges filed this month show she violated the conditions of her probation, according to court documents.

Duncan’s next court hearing is scheduled for Sept. 26.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2016/09/19/ankeny-mom-accused-sex-abuse-drug-use-teens/90714678/

An alleged property dispute led to the arrest of a woman for reportedly bear hugging the victim and slamming her to the ground as well as drug charges.

Kimberly Michelle Ray, 35, of the 200 block of Pearl Street, was arrested for charges of simple battery and possession of schedule II controlled dangerous substance (methamphetamine).

Minden Police were dispatched to the Pearl Street address around 9 p.m. Saturday, where the victim reportedly told them Ray bear hugged her and slammed her to the ground, Police Chief Steve Cropper said.

“At some point, the victim obtained a red abrasion on the right side of her neck, and the victim wished to pursue prosecution,” he said. “According to the victim, she’d been living away from the residence for several days. According to the suspect, they were apart due to her methamphetamine addiction.”

Cropper says the suspect claimed she was clean, but she exhibited signs indicative of methamphetamine use.

“She was sweating profusely, even though the temperature was only about 84 degrees,” he said. “She was nervous and exhibited unnecessary and jerky movement.”

Ray was taken into custody, and officers located a red wallet lying partially open in a bedroom. The wallet was checked for identification, and officers reportedly located a crystalline substance believed to be methamphetamine. The suspect’s identification was inside the wallet.
Ray was booked at police headquarters and transferred to Bayou Dorcheat Correctional Center.

Bear hug leads to meth arrest

Eric Stevens was just 17 years old when he tried meth for the first time.

And it gave him a feeling he’d never forget.

“It instantly brought a smile to the face and tingling through the body. And, this might sound crazy, but a lot of tingling on top of the scalp,” Stevens recalled. “It just felt pretty good.”

It was so good, he spent the better part of the next 20 years trying to re-create that high.

“I found I couldn’t quit,” Stevens said. The addiction was ruining his body and his relationships. “I started stealing from my mom, and I would start stealing and pawning stuff.”

All in order to feed what became a $100-a-day habit.

Methamphetamine is not a drug of the past — in fact, it’s bigger than ever. In Denver, there were 637 meth possession arrests last year, up 329 percent since 2011. Law enforcement officials say the highly-addictive drug is flooding cities.

“I have to say that methamphetamine is probably the most vexing and troubling drug-related border problem on my plate right now,” says Laura Duffy, the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of California. Border seizures of meth jumped 36 percent in fiscal year 2015 according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Mexican cartels have solved production problems and are shipping in vast quantities of the chemicals necessary to make meth from China. Now, their superlabs in Mexico are churning out a lot of product.

“And as a result we’re seeing very high-quality methamphetamine flood the U.S. market,” Duffy said. “At the highest quantity we’ve ever seen, the highest quality we’ve ever seen, and unfortunately the lowest prices that we’ve ever seen.”

That combination of factors is keeping drug cops busy. Denver Police Lt. Ernie Martinez said the intersection of Speer Avenue and Interstate 25 is a hotspot for meth possession arrests because it’s near the freeway.

“Easy access, easy on and off, fitting in with the majority of the population going to and from work, recreating, eating that type of thing,” said Martinez, who knows a thing or two about drugs. A Denver police officer since the 1980s, he’s worked undercover and run drug taskforces.

In the past, when Martinez worked undercover, the goal was to get to the cook — the person making the meth. That was law enforcement’s target when household products like cold medicine, paint thinner and acetone fueled the rise of home meth labs.

Those are rare these days because the drug all comes from Mexico. So Martinez said the focus is on dismantling local distribution, like routes that use I-25 and I-70.

“Sometimes it’s a game of whack-a-mole,” Martinez said. “It’s quite sad because the bottom line is all of these people are addicted. They need help and there isn’t enough help for them.”

And he said many are forced into addiction treatment only after being arrested.

At Arapahoe House, the state’s largest treatment facility, the number of patients seeking help for meth addiction have tripled, from 617 in fiscal year 2009 to 1,890 in fiscal year 2016. That’s all while a heroin epidemic also rages.

“We’ve definitely added staff,” said Lindsey Harris, a therapist at Arapahoe House. “But I don’t think it’s been that many.”

Treatment for meth addiction is especially difficult. Harris says there’s no prescription drug to help with withdrawals like there is for heroin. And meth has a powerful lifestyle component — it keeps users up for days on end and gives them a feeling of superiority.

“It makes it difficult,” said Harris. “There are so many people out there that haven’t even come in our doors yet. And we’re really accessible now, but there’s still people out there who haven’t come in yet or aren’t ready yet.”

It took two decades for Eric Stevens to be ready to seek treatment at Arapahoe House. It took having a child to convince him he needed to get off meth. After year of sobriety he’s been able to reconnect with his son.

“It was awkward. He didn’t know me,” Stevens said. “But I see him about three or four days out of the week now, and things are really good. They’re better than I expected.”

Stevens has had a happy ending, after 20 years of turmoil. There’s no end in sight, however, for the cheap and potent meth that’s inundating the U.S. and Colorado, meaning more addicts and more suffering.

http://www.cpr.org/news/story/potent-and-cheap-meth-floods-denver-streets

An Indianapolis man is facing federal charges after he was caught with more than 10 pounds of methamphetamine that he planned to sell, officials said.

U.S. Attorney Josh J. Minkler announced Tuesday the arrest of Julio Rosas.

Rosas, 25, has been charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute over 500 grams of methamphetamine and attempted possession with intent to distribute over 500 grams of methamphetamine.

The investigation began when law enforcement officials learned of a large quantity of methamphetamine destined for Indianapolis last weekend, Minkler said.

Officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, the Indiana State Police, the Lawrence Police Department and the Metro Drug Task Force worked together to set up surveillance Friday and into the early morning hours Saturday at a restaurant near East 21st Street and I-70 where Rosas was to pick up the drugs. They also monitored Rosas at his residence near East 38th Street and North Mitthoefer Road.

When Rosas arrived at the suspected pickup site, officials attempted to arrest him, but he ran from officers, according to a news release. He was quickly apprehended and taken into custody, and officers recovered a package containing 10 pounds of methamphetamine, authorities said.

“Marion County has experienced a great deal of violence recently fueled by drug trafficking,” Minkler said in a statement. “Those who peddle drugs in our neighborhoods will face the hammer of federal prosecution.”

According to Barry Glickman, who is prosecuting this case for the government, Rosas could face up to life in prison if convicted.

This is the latest bust Indianapolis DEA agents have made while working closely with state and local officials, according to a news release.

Since July, Indianapolis DEA agents have confiscated 45 pounds of marijuana, 26 kilograms of cocaine, 31 pounds of methamphetamine, four pounds of fentanyl and eight firearms and have arrested 15 people.

“Since the start of 2016, a goal of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department has been to increase collaboration with our federal law enforcement partners,” IMPD Chief Troy Riggs said in a statement. “This weekend’s joint narcotics operation with the DEA shows how effective these partnerships are in targeting high-level narcotics traffickers in our communities.”

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2016/09/21/indy-man-busted-10-pounds-meth-facing-federal-charges/90733508/

A California man was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly trying to pass through the Kansas City area on a bus with more than 5 pounds of methamphetamine taped to his midsection.

LAWTON, OK (KSWO)- Lawton Police have arrested a Lawton Correctional Facility officer for trafficking methamphetamine into the prison.

On September 19, Darnell Buckley came forward in reference to a large quantity of methamphetamine packaged to be brought into the prison. Buckley showed Lawton police officers when he had hidden the narcotics.

Officers found approximately 204 grams of methamphetamine. Buckley admitted was in possession of the large amount of meth and that he had made an agreement to bring the drugs to an inmate inside the GEO facility.

Upon searching Buckley’s cell phone, police found several text messages about a monetary transaction between Buckley and another person. According to authorities, Buckley stated that he picked up the meth from an unknown source last week.

Darnell Buckley was arrested on September 20 for trafficking illegal drugs.

http://www.kswo.com/story/33149647/lawton-correctional-officer-arrested-for-trafficking-meth-into-prison