GLENWOOD SPRINGS — A web of dealers buying and
selling cocaine and methamphetamine throughout the Roaring Fork Valley
emerges from court documents filed in the cases that investigators link
to the alleged drug ring known as The Boys. For most suspects, though,
the affidavits show no clear ties to what drug task force officers
called “one of the largest drug organizations in the history of
Colorado’s Western Slope.”
Some suspects are accused of being involved in cocaine rings, but court
documents do not spell out how they are tied to The Boys. Others appear
to be street-level recreation drug dealers with no clear ties to The
Boys. Still others are accused of dealing prescription drugs, in some
cases out of bottles bearing their own names.
Meanwhile, several members of The Boys, believed to be a cabal of about
a half-dozen men importing large quantities of cocaine and meth into
Glenwood Springs and Carbondale, appear to remain at large.
Among the 31 suspects arrested, affidavits specifically indicate two
were members of The Boys and nine had either direct or indirect ties.
Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario declined to detail the links
between and among the other suspects, saying further connections would
emerge as the cases went to trial.
“We are confident in our investigation, and as I have explained
previously, you will probably not find direct connections with everyone
in the case. That doesn’t limit a conspiracy,” Vallario said in an
e-mail.
The common denominator in nearly all the cases is “CI-07-110,” a
confidential informant who had apparently been part of a network of
dealers under The Boys. He was paid to help investigators in more than
40 drug deals. A drug case against him was dropped four days after he
was jailed.
Several suspects, their defense attorneys and their families deny they
have any ties to The Boys. They have accused the Two Rivers Drug
Enforcement Task Force of inflating the drug ring’s size.
“I get that sense with TRIDENT all the time,” said public defender
Garth McCarty, whose office is handling most of the suspects’ cases. “I
would be very curious to know if this is some need to justify the money
they’re getting in their budget by trumping up charges.”
Vallario defended the investigation.
“This case is only an ‘issue of controversy’ because the dope dealers
and their defense attorneys are trying to minimize their involvement,
and typically the local press is feeding off of that. Imagine that,” he
wrote. His e-mail came in a reply to a request for details on the
connections among specific suspects.
TRIDENT announced the bust on April 17, when about 15 of the suspects
first appeared in court. The investigation began last fall,
investigators said, and involved 20 police officers from Vail,
Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, Rifle and Silt, and Garfield County
Sheriff’s deputies. Agents arrested 31 people; seven remain at large.
They said they also confiscated more than 65 pounds of marijuana, 9
pounds of cocaine, more than a pound of methamphetamine, several
ounces of hallucinogenic mushrooms and doses of ecstasy and LSD.
Investigators described a network of suppliers, brokers, transporters
and a tiered system of dealers whose rank depended on how much they
sold and whether they had been contacted or arrested by police. They
said juveniles were often used as couriers.
“This whole 30-person drug ring sounds, I’m sure, terrifying to most
people in the county,” McCarty, the public defender, said. He believes
the actual numbers are much lower.
The suspects are a diverse mix, including a 15-year-old boy allegedly
selling mushrooms, a 66-year-old tattooed retiree accused of stashing a
huge bucket of marijuana in his home, a pregnant woman, a
small-business owner, a barber student and a woman who says she has
terminal cancer. They are white, black and Hispanic, living in an area
from Rifle to Carbondale. Some allegedly were stashing guns, have a
violent criminal history and made threats of death and intimidation.
Vallario said many of the cases are linked, but that the suspects might
not know one another, and lower-level dealers might not know The Boys.
“This is not a legal corporation where everyone works in the same
building and there is a nice pyramid-type organizational chart on the
wall,” he wrote.
dfrey@aspendailynews.com
