ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 30, 1996 TAG: 9607300079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL CROAN STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
PETER COLEY was supposed to be an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, "but he was really back in the business.''
A Los Angeles man who ran a drug manufacturing ring that spanned the United States pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges Monday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.
Police called Peter Coley, who supplied tens of millions of angel dust doses to drug dealers in Washington, D.C., the "god of PCP."
Coley, 38, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture and distribute PCP and to an additional charge of disposing of hazardous waste without a license. He nearly beat the system, however.
His organization was small and proficient, using a half-dozen people to help transport and mix the chemicals used to make PCP.
But the "god of PCP" now faces his own mortality. Coley's reign over the PCP underworld is over, and he may spend the rest of his life in prison.
Coley's 28-year-old girlfriend, Denise Charlerie of Los Angeles, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy.
PCP comes as a liquid or a powder. Users typically mix it with tobacco or marijuana and smoke it; occasionally, it is injected.
The hallucinogenic drug was developed as an anesthetic in the 1950s but proved unreliable. It can cause emotional instability, excited intoxication, lack of coordination, high blood pressure and can leave its users impervious to pain. At high doses, the drug can cause convulsions and a coma.
According to testimony from Michael Johnson of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Richmond, Coley and Charlerie were transporting chemicals used to make PCP from Los Angeles to storage facilities in Appomattox and Farmville.
Coley's crew consisted of five or six people who smuggled the chemicals across the country in rental trucks and trailers filled with old furniture.
"Basically, they were a PCP organization," Johnson testified.
The chemicals usually were bought in San Francisco, Oakland or elsewhere in Northern California. Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis said members of Coley's crew used false identification to obtain the necessary chemicals.
The crew completed stage one of the PCP-making process in Los Angeles, Johnson said. Some of the chemicals were mixed there, creating what is known as PCC.
Police believe the second stage was completed at a Charlotte County home that Coley's crew used as a lab. The U.S. attorney's office in Roanoke has jurisdiction over Charlotte County.
The eight-acre property was purchased in Charlerie's name, Wolthuis explained. "Her role was primarily to use her name, her credit, to rent most of the vehicles that were used."
However, Charlerie was not just a minor player.
On Jan. 27, 1995, authorities seized $73,600 from Charlerie at Los Angeles International Airport.
Since her arrest, Charlerie's Charlotte County property has been seized and sold at a government auction.
Authorities got a break in the case when witnesses saw three men in a U-Haul truck dumping garbage bags from the side of a bridge in Charlotte County in May 1995. Tests showed the bags contained chemical by-products from the making of PCP.
Last July, two of Coley's cousins - Reginald Booker and Ivery Yelverton - were arrested in Texas on their way to Virginia with a load of illegal chemicals in a rental trailer.
They pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in Roanoke federal court earlier this year and await sentencing.
Although Charlerie may get a break for cooperating with prosecutors, her sentence "will probably be fairly high because of the tremendous quantity" of drugs involved, Wolthuis said.
On the other hand, Wolthuis said the government will ask that Coley be sentenced to life in prison, in part because he has a previous PCP offense.
In 1991, Coley was caught with 62 gallons of liquid PCP in Little Rock, Ark.
He was sentenced to 192 months in prison, but his sentence was reduced to 48 months after he agreed to become an informant for the DEA.
"The DEA was not pleased with his rehabilitation," Wolthuis said with a laugh. "He was playing informant, but he was really back in the business."
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