ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 5, 1996 TAG: 9602050036
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
INVESTIGATORS WANT TO PROVE that a Los Angeles drug ring tried to transport enough chemicals to make up to 40 million doses of the illegal substance.
Motorists became suspicious when they saw three men in a U-Haul heaving trash bags from the side of a bridge in Charlotte County last May, bags that gave off a pungent chemical smell.
Workers from the state Department of Environmental Quality who came to retrieve the chemicals discovered the sludge in and along the banks of Ward's Creek. Tests showed it to be the byproduct from the making of PCP, a hallucinogenic drug better known as angel dust.
The amount of the byproduct thrown out in Charlotte County indicated it came from a batch large enough to produce 40 million doses of the drug, according to a federal agent.
"That's the best indication of the massiveness" of the alleged organization, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis.
Investigators believe the sludge leads all the way to a major drug ring based in South Central Los Angeles. Three men have been indicted in federal court in Roanoke - which has jurisdiction over Charlotte County - on charges of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute PCP. An investigation centered in California continues.
Two of the men - one a former government chemist - are alleged to have shuttled the ingredients across the country. The mix was secreted in rental trailers full of used furniture, police said.
They were arrested last July in Texas, on their way east from California with a load of battered furniture and 19 gallons of chemicals that the government says were to be used to make PCP in Virginia.
Reginald "Rudy" Booker of California is a 42-year-old former research chemist for the Food and Drug Administration who lost his job after failing a drug test, according to Drug Enforcement Administration testimony. He has a doctorate in chemistry, according to the prosecution, and has worked at DuPont and the Medical College of Virginia. His cousin, Ivery Yelverton, 50, of Washington, D.C., is a former mail carrier on disability who has no criminal history, his attorney said. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Another man, Daryl "Cheese" Jackson, an inmate in a California jail, also has been indicted on a conspiracy charge, but has not entered a plea yet.
Police said they found photocopies of chemistry textbooks when they arrested Yelverton and Booker, as well as receipts for 63 gallons of chemicals that can be used to make PCP. They believe Booker was the "cook" who made the PCP and that Yelverton and Jackson helped obtain and transport the necessary chemicals.
Making PCP is a two-step process. Booker is alleged to have made PCC, the first stage of the process, in California, then transported that across the country to Virginia to finish the second stage.
PCP is easy and inexpensive to make, and large-scale wholesalers generally have little worry about getting caught.
Southern California is considered the source for most of the PCP sold around the country. The drug can be bought in rock crystal or liquid form; typically, cigarettes are dipped into it and smoked. Manufacturers can sell PCP for $3,500 to $5,000 a gallon in Los Angeles, and up to $10,000 outside Los Angeles, DEA spokesman Ralph Lochridge said.
The DEA has a "clandestine PCP lab team" in Los Angeles working on the Roanoke case. The team has found that PCP is mostly being made by gangs, making the labs "extremely difficult to penetrate," Lochridge said.
Cousins Booker and Yelverton have another cousin in Los Angeles, Peter Coley, an alleged drug dealer and occasional DEA informant.
"He is basically 'the god of PCP' in the east Los Angeles area," and has been since the late 1980s, DEA Agent Michael Johnson testified at Booker and Yelverton's bond hearing Thursday.
Coley is now cooperating with the government and has told agents that Booker taught him how to make the drug, Johnson said.
The DEA believes Coley's group was distributing in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., Johnson said. Yelverton is alleged to have been the major distributor of PCP in Washington, his hometown.
Coley has not been charged in this case, Johnson said.
"So the god of PCP is not under arrest, has not been charged?'' Yelverton's attorney, David Damico, asked Johnson under cross-examination. He referred to his client and Booker facetiously as "lesser gods of PCP."
Damico argued that the only physical evidence the government has against his client is his presence in Booker's van when they were arrested in Texas. He said after the hearing that Coley has acted as a federal informant in the past.
"Would you go into business with your cousin, the DEA informant?'' he asked. "That's pretty stupid."
Wolthuis has delayed handing over evidence to defense attorneys because he said it could compromise the investigation in California. The trial is scheduled for later this month, but could be delayed.
"They're not giving [Yelverton] a shot at a fair trial," Damico said, because he can't prepare a defense without knowing exactly what the government says his client did.
Ray Byrd, who represents Booker, said he may seek to have evidence found during the Texas arrest suppressed. He questions whether the traffic stop - made because Yelverton wasn't wearing a seat belt - was lawful. He said it looks as though the two were arrested before the government had built its case and was ready for trial.
U.S. District Judge James Turk, who expressed concern that Booker and Yelverton have been in custody for eight months without bond, took a motion to set bond for them under advisement.
"You can't just arrest somebody, put them in jail and say they're part of a big, big operation, and continue to hold them while you continue to investigate the larger operation," Turk said. He gave Wolthuis until Feb. 15 to turn over evidence to the defense in hopes of beginning their trial Feb. 27.
The government is presenting two images of the defendants: simultaneously savvy drug dealers and sloppy amateurs.Investigators say the cousins' suspected littering into the creek in broad daylight and some really bad driving habits were helpful in keeping track of their coast-to-coast road trips.
As they motored across the country with a U-Haul full of old furniture in tow, Booker and Yelverton were in car accidents or got pulled over at least four times in the four months before they were arrested. Court records show that police and accident reports, as well as U-Haul rental contracts, helped investigators tie them to the chemicals in Ward's Creek.
The government says Booker used Appomattox Self-Storage Lot and another facility to store chemicals.
An hour before the chemicals were dumped in Ward's Creek last May, someone in a U-Haul ran into the side of Appomattox Self-Storage. Booker later sent the owner a money order to pay for the damage.
Four days after the accident, the owner was inspecting the damage to his building. He said he noticed that the door to Booker's storage bin was unlocked. A strong chemical smell was emanating from it, according to court records. The owner looked inside and saw old furniture, two 55-gallon drums labeled "ether," a cardboard container labeled "magnesium turnings" and a container marked "iodine crystals" - all chemicals needed to make PCP, the DEA says. The sheriff's office said the owner's report about his discovery helped link Booker to the Charlotte County dumping.
DEA Agent Johnson described Booker as a "very intelligent, highly educated" man. But defense attorneys, who maintain their clients are innocent, are wondering why such a person would stop traffic with a U-Haul in Charlotte County and risk being seen by other motorists while tossing PCP-laden chemicals into a creek, as the government alleges.
"The whole thing's a mystery to me," Damico said.
PCP Conspiracy
The government believes it has uncovered a multi-state conspiracy to make PCP, better known as angel dust, a drug first created in the 1950s as an anesthetic. In small doses, it produces a drunken state, heightened sensitivity to stimuli and numbness to pain. In higher doses, it makes users feel dissociated from the world around them and sometimes results in hallucinations, aggression and paranoia.
The government believes a major PCP manufacturing and distribution enterprise centered in south central Los Angeles has been operating in a number of states, including Virginia.
In April 1995, Reginald Booker and Ivery Yelverton, heading west, are pulled over in Vega, Texas for speeding. Booker tells the deputy they're returning to California after delivering furniture to Richmond, Virginia.
In July, the pair - heading east this time - is again pulled over in Vega by a deputy, who says he stopped them because one wasn't wearing his seat belt. Police search their U-Haul trailer and amid old and tattered furniture find 19 gallons of precursor chemicals they believe were to be used to make PCP.
On May 9, Booker and Yelverton are involved in a car accident in Tennessee, driving a rental vehicle from California. A state trooper notices that they're hauling various items of furniture. Upon their release from the hospital, the pair rents another U-Haul truck and heads to Virginia.
On May 13, two men are seen pulling away from Booker's storage bin at Appomattox Self-Storage in a U-Haul and hitting the building. They don't stop. An hour later, witnesses notice two men in a U-Haul heaving trash bags off the side of a Charlotte County bridge into Ward's Creek. The bags are found to contain chemical by-products from the manufacture of PCP. Police say they have traced the chemicals to where they were purchased, at a chemical sales company in California.
LENGTH: Long : 174 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Map by staff: This map is based on grand juryby CNBindictments and affidavits from law-enforcement agents. The
defendants have pleaded not guilty. color.