Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 2, 1994 TAG: 9401020035
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
\ When Gary "Chub" Johnson wasn't working part-time as a trash collector, he could be seen cruising around town in his Porsche or his BMW.
That may not have raised many eyebrows in his neighborhood, but the federal government was suspicious.
Those suspicions were confirmed last year when Johnson, 30, pleaded guilty to running a major crack cocaine business in Roanoke.
Johnson, who faces up to life in prison, is just one of more than 30 people - many of them high-level drug dealers - snared in the most recent strike against a cocaine trade that shows no signs of diminishing in Roanoke.
Federal authorities have dubbed the effort Operation Roundball, in part because many drug deals evolved from friendships made on basketball courts in city parks.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Baer said the operation has shown that, in some parts of Roanoke, drug dealing has become as much a part of life as a game of pick-up basketball.
No one seems to question why a trash collector has a fleet of expensive cars, Baer said - not even when he buys them with $10,000 in cash on the spot.
"It's become a communitywide accepted thing," Baer said.
In fact, some people closest to the drug dealers - girlfriends, mothers and other relatives - often take an active role in assisting them.
"The family members and relatives are not just turning their heads," Baer said. "They're helping, and they think nothing of it."
So instead of targeting just street-corner dealers and their suppliers, authorities now are charging friends and family members who launder money or help hide the assets of drug dealers. Charges even have been brought against car salesmen who take $10,000 in cash for a sports car with no questions asked.
Family ties are so strong in some rings that a chart in Baer's office, prepared to explain the flow of drugs to a jury, looks more like a family tree.
Among those snared so far in the net of Operation Roundball:
Gary Johnson's girlfriend, 21-year-old Hope Flint, who pleaded guilty to money laundering for allowing him to title some of his expensive sports car in her name. Other girlfriends and relatives of drug dealers face money-laundering charges for wiring large cash payments via Western Union to out-of-town suppliers.
Flint's mother, 59-year-old Reva Bouseman, who has pleaded guilty to perjury for giving false information to authorities as they closed in on the drug ring.
Kurt O. Jones, a salesman at 5 til 9 Auto Sales and Services, who was charged with aiding and abetting an accused drug dealer. Jones pleaded guilty to titling a $13,000 BMW in the name of the drug suspect's sister, knowing the transaction was designed to conceal the true ownership of the car.
No one is accusing Flint, Bouseman or Jones of selling drugs.
But, Baer said, "I hold them equally culpable. Just because their hands are not on the drugs, that doesn't mean they aren't aiding and abetting in a drug conspiracy."
Some defense attorneys accuse the government of using heavy-handed tactics against people whose involvement in drugs is marginal at best.
"They're hauling in mothers and girlfriends before a grand jury and asking them to testify against loved ones about something they may not know much about," said one attorney who asked not to be named.
Others are bothered by what they see as an implicit message in the government's tactic: that anyone driving an expensive car around an inner-city neighborhood must be dealing drugs.
"They're feeding into a mentality out there that buys that argument," the attorney said.
\ Operation Roundball got rolling in early 1992, when police received a tip that didn't seem that big: a description of a car believed to be carrying guns to New York.
But it turned out to be the tip of an iceberg.
After police stopped the car on Interstate 81 and found it loaded with guns to be traded for drugs, the driver agreed to cooperate.
"He basically flipped right away and became an informant," Baer said.
As the informant began to make undercover cocaine purchases, it became clear that he had access to some of the biggest drug dealers in Roanoke.
His contacts led to a second informant, who led authorities to even more dealers.
As the investigation played out in secret grand jury sessions on the fourth floor of Roanoke's Poff Building, prosecutors found they were dealing with a network that brought several kilograms of cocaine into the city each week from Houston and New York.
The total street value of the cocaine involved was more than $750,000, Baer said.
Cocaine from Houston and New York was shipped to Paterson, N.J., where prosecutors say it fell into the hands of two dealers.
From there, it was sent to "Chub" Johnson and William "Chill Bill" Burnette, two of the key Roanoke figures in the conspiracy.
Indictments allege that Johnson and Burnette tried to distance themselves from the operation by having their girlfriends and family members wire payments for the drugs to New Jersey.
Once the cocaine got to Roanoke, Johnson and Burnette distributed it to mid-level dealers, according to the indictments. From there, it filtered down to the city's open-air crack markets.
\ In the summer of 1989, crack was brand new to Roanoke.
The highly addictive drug had just begun to infiltrate the Roanoke Valley from larger cities, and police hoped to cut off the flow before it spread.
Authorities launched Operation Caribbean Sunset, a joint police effort that led to hundreds of arrests amid highly visible street raids and news conferences.
Encouraged by the news, residents in drug-plagued neighborhoods called police in unprecedented numbers, reporting drug activity that had earlier kept them scared silent.
Operation Roundball has been more low-profile, but Baer nonetheless likens it to Caribbean Sunset.
While the number of arrests may be smaller this time around, "we're getting the top people, as opposed to the street dealers," he said. More indictments are expected as the investigation enters a new phase.
Just because there is less community reaction this time, that doesn't mean that drug dealing has been accepted everywhere.
People may be discouraged because "we had the sweeps back then, but the problem didn't go away" with Caribbean Sunset, said Al Henley, resident agent in charge of the Roanoke office of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
"I don't think there's any less concern now," Henley said. "It's just frustration."
With the temporary success of Operation Roundball comes the realization that crack is here to stay; the only change will be a new name for the next police offensive.
"I think it's still sort of a steady stream," said Regional Drug Prosecutor Alice Ekirch, who has seen little change in her office's caseload.
Ekirch prosecutes hundreds of street-level crack dealers in city courts, where she sees the same family connections revealed in federal court by Operation Roundball.
It's not unusual for the mother of a teen-age drug dealer to take messages for him, she said, telling potential customers when he's expected home or how to reach him to set up a transaction.
The vast majority of the drug dealers are inner-city residents struggling with poverty, broken homes and other social ills.
"I think it's mostly the underprivileged people who see it as the only way to get out of a fix," Ekirch said.
While crack may provide a way for dealers to get rich fast, the money is not always passed on to girlfriends and family members who help the enterprise thrive.
"That's the really sad part," Baer said. "They get nothing for it. Nothing but aggravation."
by CNB