PowWows.com - Your source for everything Pow Wow since 1996

Anishnawbe10

Sixteen charged in Pine Ridge drug ring
By Heidi Bell Gease, Journal Staff Writer
RAPID CITY - Sixteen people from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation indicted in connection with a cocaine trafficking ring are now in federal custody.

Most of the co-defendants were arrested Wednesday morning in and around Pine Ridge Village. Four were already in jail on other charges. The arrests were made without incident, an FBI spokesman said Thursday.

“It takes great cooperation among the agencies and tremendous cooperation to finalize and make sure that all the arrests are done safely and no one is hurt,” special agent Paul McCabe, spokesman for the Minnesota Division of the FBI, said Thursday.

Some agents told him they had gone into Big Bat’s convenience store in Pine Ridge after the raid, still wearing their law enforcement T-shirts. “A lot of the citizens were coming up and patting them on the back and thanking them,” McCabe said. “When you see that the public is thankful for what we’ve done, that brings a lot of gratification.”

Wednesday’s arrests — all on drug and firearms charges — were the result of a two-year investigation led by the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, said assistant U.S. attorney Mara Kohn, who is prosecuting the case. McCabe said the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Department of Public Safety also was a main investigating agency.

Co-defendants indicted include Geraldine Blue Bird, one of four people arrested for cocaine possession at a Rapid City motel in December. Kohn said that arrest, along with the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old boy at Blue Bird’s mobile home in Pine Ridge on Dec. 10, helped expedite the case.

A federal grand jury last week indicted Blue Bird, Colin Spotted Elk, Marvella Richards, Clarence Behan, Travis Elk Boy, Dawnee Frogg, Jay Dee Spotted Elk, Howard Blue Bird, Thomas Spotted Bear, Flint Thomas Red Feather, Justin Hawk Wing, Sage Richards, Norton Richards, Wenona Richards, Joe Garcia and Rusty Richards. All are charged with conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute 5 kilograms or more of cocaine, starting in 2002 or earlier.

Geraldine Blue Bird, Colin Spotted Elk, Jay Dee Spotted Elk, Sage Richards, Elk Boy, Hawk Wing and Howard Blue Bird also are charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana. Colin Spotted Elk and Thomas Spotted Bear are also charged with distribution of cocaine and possession of a firearm — in this case, a rifle — in connection with a drug trafficking crime.

The eight-count indictment also charges Geraldine Blue Bird with possession of a firearm (three revolvers) in connection with a drug trafficking crime.

Court documents indicate that if Blue Bird is convicted of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute cocaine or marijuana, she would be required to forfeit assets to the U.S. government. Those assets include drug proceeds and the blue double-wide mobile home in Pine Ridge’s Igloo Housing that Blue Bird received as the result of President Clinton’s “poverty tour” of the reservation in 2000.

Blue Bird, who was living in a small home with 28 people when Clinton visited, received the mobile home as a gift from a Washington couple who read about her plight, according to a story in the Washington Post.

Jody Richard of Rapid City is charged in a separate indictment connected with the Dec. 21 motel arrest in Rapid City. Richard was arrested along with Geraldine Blue Bird, Norton Richards and Wenona Richards after a Rapid City police officer went to a La Crosse Street motel in response to reports of a marijuana odor in the hallway.

According to court documents, Blue Bird answered the officer’s knock on the motel room door. The officer could see marijuana inside, and a subsequent search produced 1-½ pounds of cocaine, three firearms and more than $16,000 in cash. Richard is charged with possession with intent to distribute.

Meanwhile, no information has been released about arrests made in connection with the Dec. 10 death of Apollo White Calf, 16, at Blue Bird’s Pine Ridge home. White Calf died after he was shot in the face. A witness said White Calf shot himself.

Wednesday, Pine Ridge BIA supervisory special agent Martin Hansford said the people arrested and their activities had been “a source of concern to law enforcement and tribal government for a number of years.” Hansford said those arrested were members of the “Igloo” gang and that illegal firearms were seized in Wednesday morning’s raid.

Agents from the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives and Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Department of Public Safety were assisted in the investigation by the Northern Plains Safe Trails Task Force, Rapid City Police Department and Unified Narcotics Enforcement Team.

Kohn said the same agencies were all involved in Wednesday’s arrests, as were the U.S. Marshal’s Office, Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Forest Service, South Dakota Air National Guard Counter Drug Unit and Bureau of Indian Affairs Criminal Investigation Division.

The investigation continues. Anyone with additional information can call the Rapid City FBI office at 343-9632.

“We continue to try to make the reservation safe,” McCabe said. “It’s a high priority for the FBI in South Dakota.”

The maximum penalty for conspiracy to distribute cocaine is 10 years to life in prison and a $4 million fine upon conviction. The maximum penalty for use of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime is life in prison, according to court documents.

Contact Heidi Bell Gease at 394-8419 or heidi.bell@rapidcityjournal.com

__________________
"To follow the right path, is one to follow the mistakes he made in life, to learn off them. Learn to understand them..."

Wakalapi

Way to get people to see things our way. Thanks, Gerie...

__________________

"Friends don't let friends drink decaf..."