Nevada: 4 charged in guns-for-drugs trade with agents
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Four men have been arrested and face federal criminal charges after allegedly arranging a drugs-for-guns trade with undercover federal agents.
Documents filed in Reno’s U.S. District Court show Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents held a pair of July 9 meetings in a casino hotel with two men trying to negotiate a trade of methamphetamine for firearms, particularly AK-47-type rifles.
Negotiator Rafael Arias, 24, who served as a translator for the second man, said a source in Mexico wanted the weapons for use in drug trafficking operations. According to court papers, Arias said if the deal went well, the source would want additional firearms.
The criminal complaint alleges the men offered agents 9 ounces of meth, less than half an ounce of cocaine and $2,500 cash in exchange for 26 firearms with silencers.
During an initial meeting, one of the negotiators took photographs of the guns with his cell phone and sent them to an unidentified person.
Once the trade was negotiated, two other men were called to the hotel room with black bags on rollers to retrieve the weapons.
Arrested and charged with one count each of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance Arias, 24, Luis Eduardo Gonzalez-Luprecio, 23, Juan Burgueno, 25, and Baldemar Sanchez-Goana, 26, addresses unknown.
All were booked into the Washoe County Detention Facility.
Arias was released from custody on his own recognizance. A magistrate judge ordered Burgueno held without bail because of prior arrests and gang involvement. Sanchez-Goana and Gonzalez-Luprecio have also been ordered detained.
California: Narcotics evidence analysis slowed by budget cuts
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Overtime reductions as a result of budget cuts have significantly slowed the analysis of narcotics evidence by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, according the sheriff.
“The department continues to experience operational impacts, especially within critical support and investigative units,” Sheriff Lee Baca wrote in a report to the LA County Board of Supervisors.
Baca said trained analysts used to handle the heavy load of narcotics cases by working overtime.
Last year the average backlog, before the cuts, was 256 cases, The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. That number has more than tripled, sheriff’s officials said, growing to 920 unanalyzed cases.
Baca recently cut overtime expenses in an effort to compensate for a $128 million budget cut.
Last month the Times reported the sheriff’s department is collecting fewer fingerprints because of budget cuts, leading to delays in scores of criminal investigations. There was a backlog of more than 100 prints waiting to be analyzed and compared against a statewide database.
Other law enforcement agencies in LA County that outsource their narcotics analysis to the sheriff’s department say they’ve been affected by the backlog.
A detective with the Monrovia Police Department said results used to come back in a week or two but now take, on average, up to a month. The agency submits evidence such as pills or suspected cocaine to determine its contents.
“It’d be nice if it was quicker,” said Monrovia police Detective Alex Perenishko. “We’d be able to answer the courts’ questions faster.
Ohio: DNA testing may reopen 17-year-old murder case
AKRON, Ohio (AP) — A judge in Ohio has ordered DNA testing in a 17-year-old murder case that produced dozens of suspects before a conviction was reached in 1995.
Dewey Amos Jones III is serving 30 years to life in prison for aggravated murder and aggravated robbery in the 1993 death of 71-year-old Goodyear retiree Neal Rankin at his home in Akron.
Summit County Common Pleas Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove ordered DNA testing of preserved samples of biological evidence from the home, where Rankin was bound with rope, beaten and shot in the head. The evidence has not been previously tested for DNA.
Cosgrove said the tests should be done “in the interests of justice.” A hearing is planned for Tuesday.
Jones’ attorney, Carrie Wood of the Ohio Innocence Project, said Akron police have the evidence and that it will be tested in a Cincinnati lab. She said no physical evidence links him to the crime scene.
Among items to be tested are a handgun, a rope, a bloody handprint and scrapings from Rankin’s fingernails.
Jones, 48, told the Akron Beacon Journal in May that he is innocent.
“I had nothing to do with it at all, in any way, shape or form,” he said at the Summit County Jail, where he was being held temporarily after a court hearing. “I know I’m going to get out. I know the truth is going to come out. I’ve been praying for it for years.”
Following Rankin’s death, authorities took 15 months to make their first arrest in the case, and aggravated murder charges were filed and dismissed against others before Jones was tried.
Among those charged were Jones’ wife, sister and an acquaintance. Charges were dismissed within days of their trials, and prosecutors said then there wasn’t enough evidence against them.
Cosgrove’s order shows that an inmate who was jailed with Jones in 1994 testified that he confessed to the crime. Jones said the inmate and another plotted to lie.
Other witnesses were two of Rankin’s neighbors who identified Jones in police photo arrays as a man they saw near Rankin’s home the day of the slaying. Cosgrove writes that both men had picked another person from a photo lineup in the days after the killing and that Jones was not selected until at least eight months later.
Jones is being held in Richland Correctional Institution. He is eligible for parole in 2018.
New Mexico: Trio sues to recover funds seized by police
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — Three people are suing a drug task force, seeking the return of money seized in connection with 2009 drug arrests in southern New Mexico.
Erica Silva Lopez, Eulalio Valentine Chavez and Michael Novak are suing Las Cruces, Dona Ana County and a drug task force in which both governments participate.
The three allege $7,600 was either improperly seized in the first place or was not returned once charges were dropped.
Dona Ana County spokesman Jess Williams and the city’s interim attorney Harry Connelly declined to comment.
