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Indictment lays out drug operation in Bozeman
By TRISTAN SCOTT
Missoulian
For 23 months, student-athletes ran a drug-dealing cartel in Bozeman that involved concealing cocaine in peanut butter jars, using disposable track phones to evade police and fronting scholarship money that tripled on cash returns.
According to a federal indictment, these are the finer points of an elaborate drug ring that flourished, mostly at the hands of one-time Montana State University athletes, until federal investigators unraveled the sprawling case in May.
Additional details of the drug-dealing operation emerged last week when federal prosecutors in Montana unsealed a 21-page criminal complaint charging former Bobcats football player Demetrius A. Williams, 24, with selling and conspiring to sell cocaine.
The complaint draws parallels between the drug ring and the June 2006 shooting death of reputed cocaine dealer Jason Wright, and it alleges that Williams temporarily suspended his cocaine operations immediately after Wright's killing. Former redshirt football player John Lebrum and former Bobcats basketball player Branden Miller have been charged with Wright's kidnapping and death in a separate case in Gallatin County. Both have pleaded not guilty, and their trials are scheduled for next year.
Prosecutors allege that Williams was the leader of a wide-ranging drug cartel that imported nearly 26 pounds of cocaine at an estimated street value of $42,000 to Montana between June 2005 and May 2007. The ring employed other MSU athletes, including Bobcats wide receiver Richard "Rick" Gatewood, who bankrolled Williams' startup operation using athletic scholarship money, according to the indictment.
full story:
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/09/30/news/state/30-cocaine.txt
By TRISTAN SCOTT
Missoulian
For 23 months, student-athletes ran a drug-dealing cartel in Bozeman that involved concealing cocaine in peanut butter jars, using disposable track phones to evade police and fronting scholarship money that tripled on cash returns.
According to a federal indictment, these are the finer points of an elaborate drug ring that flourished, mostly at the hands of one-time Montana State University athletes, until federal investigators unraveled the sprawling case in May.
Additional details of the drug-dealing operation emerged last week when federal prosecutors in Montana unsealed a 21-page criminal complaint charging former Bobcats football player Demetrius A. Williams, 24, with selling and conspiring to sell cocaine.
The complaint draws parallels between the drug ring and the June 2006 shooting death of reputed cocaine dealer Jason Wright, and it alleges that Williams temporarily suspended his cocaine operations immediately after Wright's killing. Former redshirt football player John Lebrum and former Bobcats basketball player Branden Miller have been charged with Wright's kidnapping and death in a separate case in Gallatin County. Both have pleaded not guilty, and their trials are scheduled for next year.
Prosecutors allege that Williams was the leader of a wide-ranging drug cartel that imported nearly 26 pounds of cocaine at an estimated street value of $42,000 to Montana between June 2005 and May 2007. The ring employed other MSU athletes, including Bobcats wide receiver Richard "Rick" Gatewood, who bankrolled Williams' startup operation using athletic scholarship money, according to the indictment.
full story:
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/09/30/news/state/30-cocaine.txt
