Criminal Defense

SEATTLE (AP) -- Eighteen people who were arrested as part of a national strike against a violent Mexican drug cartel were affiliates but not members of La Familia, and many seemed to be ordinary citizens, Seattle-area law enforcement officials said Thursday.

Of 16 people indicted in U.S. District Court in Seattle on charges of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine and to engage in money laundering, 10 pleaded not guilty Wednesday following raids in Monroe, Renton and other municipalities. Four others had been arrested by Thursday morning.

Four people were arrested on federal complaints, which typically precede an indictment. Two of those four were being held in California for return to Seattle.

Arturo J. Barajas Garcia, 32, of Renton, described by authorities as the kingpin of the local operation, was among those who appeared in court in Seattle. According to the complaint, his organization extended as far as Atlanta and members of the group also traveled regularly to California and to Dallas with shipments of drugs and money.

A Drug Enforcement Administration-led task force seized 28 pounds of meth, 22 pounds of cocaine, seven guns and about $200,000 from 19 homes and 22 vehicles searched in Washington state and California.

About 280 federal agents, sheriff's deputies and police from 10 agencies and jurisdictions participated in the raids, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark N. Bartlett told reporters Thursday.

Thousands of telephone conversations were tapped during the investigation, which began locally when King County sheriff's deputies noticed patterns in street-level enforcement operations, DEA acting special agent in charge Mark C. Thomas told reporters in Seattle Thursday.

The agency won't allow La Familia to establ! ish a fo othold Western Washington, Bartlett said.

"We will use wiretaps. We will use drug informants. We will use undercover officers, surveillance - every tool available for our law enforcement personnel to attack these groups will be used, and we will defeat them," he said.

Still at large Thursday were Daniel Barajas, 36, of San Diego, and Cesura Barajas Papilla, 32, of Michoacan state in Mexico. Both are believed to have gone to Mexico, possibly in Apatzingan, a city in Michoacan state where La Familia is based, Bartlett said.

The group led by Barajas Garcia bought drugs in California from La Familia members, including an estimated 20 pounds of pure meth a month, said Adam Cornell, a special assistant U.S. attorney and deputy prosecutor in Snohomish County, where most of the local arrests were made.

But Barajas Garcia and the rest of those charged locally are believed to be affiliates rather than members of the cartel, Cornell said.

Nine arrests were made in Monroe, a town of about 16,000 and home to the state's largest prison complex about 25 miles northeast of Seattle. Some had arrived recently and others had been there for years, and none seemed to be doing any retail drug dealing, Monroe police Cmdr. Steve Clopp said.

"I would say that they were well-integrated members of the community," Clopp said. "A lot of them keep up the everyday appearance of work and family."

One house seemed rundown and "not your normal family dwelling," but the rest "fit right into the community," Clopp said. "In fact a few citizens in a few of the locations described them as nice, quiet neighbors...

"It was a very interesting investigation to see how well criminals can blend into the community."

About 15 children ages 2 to 17 were living in the houses. About half were placed with relatives and the o! thers - mostly younger - were referred to Child Protective Services to determine proper custody, he said.

About a dozen people were arrested in Monroe on state charges as a result of what was found in the raids, he said.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- In the largest single strike at Mexican drug operations in the U.S., authorities arrested more than 300 people in a sting that demonstrates a young cartel's vast reach north of the border.

The tentacles of "La Familia" extend coast to coast and deep into America's heartland, with arrests announced Thursday in 38 cities from Boston to Seattle and from St. Paul, Minn., to Raleigh, N.C.

Drug deals went down in Oklahoma parking lots, suppliers were advised to weld drugs into tire rims for transport, and in the Dallas and Seattle areas, dozens of children were removed from houses where authorities found drugs, guns or cash derived from drug sales.

Perhaps more than any other cartel, La Familia projects a Robin Hood image. The Drug Enforcement Administration said the group is "philosophically opposed to the sale of methamphetamine to Mexicans, and instead supports its export to the United States for consumption by Americans."

Mexican police say the gang uses religion and family morals to recruit. The gang has hung banners in towns saying they do not tolerate drug use, or attacks on women or children.

One of the gang's alleged recruiters, detained last spring, ran drug rehabilitation centers, helping addicts to recover and then forcing them to work for the drug gang or be killed, according to Mexico Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna.

La Familia is rarely mentioned in the same breath as the handful of other Mexican gangs that control the flow of drugs into the United States, fueled by Colombian cocaine suppliers. The Sinaloa, Juarez, Gulf and Tijuana cartels have roots that go back many years, even decades.

But in its short history, La Familia is believed to have emerged as the biggest supplier of methampheta! mine to the United States and, increasingly, a peddler of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs.

Complaints that were unsealed across the country portray an organization that spread deep into Middle America, down to small-time sales.

In Oklahoma, authorities seized about 20 pounds of methamphetmaine, two pounds of cocaine, six weapons and several thousand dollars. They identified Ruben Garcia, 29, as a major supplier in the northeast part of the state.

Agents spotted Garcia and his partners dealing drugs over several months at restaurants, grocery stores and Wal-Mart parking lots in the Tulsa area, according to court documents. In one tapped phone call Oct. 9, Garcia counseled a supplier in Mexico who helped arrange a shipment in McAllen, Texas, that the easiest way to smuggle drugs is welded inside tire rims of vehicles.

Court records do not list an attorney for Garcia.

In North Carolina, targeted cells operated from the Raleigh area to the eastern cities of Rocky Mount and Greenville, a region with a large Hispanic population to help the targets blend in and quick access to three interstate highways. They made four arrests Wednesday but totaled 49 arrests over the past year.

In Nashville, after more than a year of surveillance, agents converged on a home when two people arrived in a Toyota Camry from Atlanta Aug. 14, according to a complaint. A search of the vehicle discovered hidden compartments that "contained nine similarly wrapped packages, each of which were the size of a kilogram of cocaine." One package tested positive for cocaine.

Inside the home, agents found drug ledgers, a money counter and a loaded pistol. At another home, they found about 50 pounds of marijuana, several loaded handguns and two bulletproof vests.

Texas Child Protective Services removed 20 children from houses in the Dallas area wh! en autho rities executed 44 search warrants, said James Capra, the DEA's special agent in charge in Dallas. All the homes where children were found had drugs, guns or cash derived from drug sales.

The sting reached into small towns hundreds of miles from Mexico.

Nine arrests were made in Monroe, Wash., with a population of about 16,000 and home to the state's largest prison about 25 miles northeast of Seattle. None seemed to be doing any retail drug dealing, Monroe police Cmdr. Steve Clopp said.

"I would say that they were well-integrated members of the community," Clopp said. "A lot of them keep up the everyday appearance of work and family."

In the Inland Empire, a cluster of east Los Angeles suburbs where 25 people were arrested and 156 pounds of methamphtamine seized, most suspects are illegal immigrants from Mexico who came to the United States to work for La Familia, said Stephen Azzam, DEA assistant special agent in charge in Riverside, Calif.

Methamphetamine was shipped from the Inland Empire, an area with three interstate highways, to cities including Atlanta and Chicago, Azzam said.

La Familia is known as unusually violent, even by Mexico's standards.

After the arrest of one of its leaders in July in Mexico, the cartel launched an offensive against federal forces, killing 18 police officers and two soldiers over a weekend. In the worst attack, 12 federal agents were slain and their tortured bodies piled along a roadside as a warning for all to see.

"They are one of the most violent, if not the most violent, cartel in Mexico right now," said Michael Braun, who retired as the DEA's chief of operations last year.

La Familia operates methamphetamine "superlabs" in Mexico that produce up to 100 pounds of the drug in eight hours, a sharp contrast to small-time labs in the United ! States t hat have supplied American addicts, said Braun.

The organization was founded around 2004 and really took off in 2006, Braun said.

The arrests in places such as Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles suggest that its U.S. distribution network is sophisticated, said Scott Stewart, an analyst at the Stratfor consultancy in Austin, Texas, who follows the Mexican drug trade.

"Those are beautiful interstate (highway) hubs," Stewart said. "It's looking they have ramped up very quickly."

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Associated Press writers Mike Baker in Raleigh, N.C., Julie Watson in Mexico City, Rochelle Hines in Oklahoma City, Travis Loller in Nashville, Tenn., Tim Klass in Seattle, Danny Robbins in Dallas and Gillian Flaccus in San Bernardino, Calif. contributed to this report. Spagat reported from San Diego.

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -- About $2 million in federal and state money is being made available for new road construction and flood control after portions of a highway were wiped out by a landslide in central Washington.

The federal government is releasing $1 million in emergency relief to accelerate construction of a new section of road that likely will be the permanent route for State Route 410 around the massive Oct. 11 slide that blocked the road and dammed the Naches River.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and Republican Rep. Doc Hastings announced the federal funding Monday.

The landslide demolished a half-mile of the highway about 15 miles west of Naches. It also destroyed at least two homes and changed the course of the Naches River, causing flooding.

Yakima County engineer Gary Ekstedt tells the Yakima Herald-Republic that the county also will receive $1 million in low-interest loans from the state Public Works Trust Fund.

Yakima County is trying to create a new channel for the river that will contain expected high flows this winter.

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Information from: Yakima Herald-Republic, http://www.yakima-herald.com

SEATTLE (AP) -- More money might result in more projects to replace culverts that block migrating salmon in Washington state but would not cut the time it takes to make each fix, a transportation official testified Monday.

Paul J. Wagner, environmental services biology branch manager in the state Transportation Department, testified Monday in U.S. District Court that the estimated number of state highway-related problem culverts has grown from 350 in 1994, when the first survey was completed, to 1,800 when the latest estimate was completed in 2007.

The difference reflects the addition of rivers, creeks and streams with steeper slopes to the estimates, Wagner told Judge Ricardo S. Martinez. The first survey covered only those with gradients up to 7 degrees while the latest goes up to 20 degrees.

Subtracting about 200 fixes that have been made since the state's culvert program began in 1991 and culverts that would be of little benefit to repair or replace, about 800 remain on the to-do list, he said.

In a trial that began last Tuesday, 19 Native American tribes are asking Martinez to order a drastic speedup in replacing culverts that block salmon from potential spawning grounds and their offspring from the ocean.

The case is a spinoff of 29 years of litigation over tribal fishing rights based on mid-19th century treaties. State lawyers argue that a culvert speedup would give short shrift to other vital efforts, including habitat restoration, hatcheries, harvest controls and changes in hydroelectric dam operations.

Regardless of funding, it takes at least four years from scoping - determining which actions, impacts and concerns will be addressed in a project - to improve or replace a culvert to meet fish passage requirements, Wagner said.

Mor e money won't speed up that process, he added, "We'll just be able to do more projects at the same time."

John C. Sledd, a lawyer for nine of the tribes, suggested that fixing culverts would benefit salmon more than other efforts.

"Our goal is to correct priority salmon barriers," Wagner replied. "We hope that would increase salmon production. We don't have a way to determine" how that work compares in effectiveness with other approaches.

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) -- Pierce County officials are investigating six complaints against Assessor-Treasurer Dale Washam from workers in his agency.

County personnel managers notified Washam of the claims of mistreatment and wasting public funds three weeks ago.

The News Tribune of Tacoma reports that, according to the notice, employees have accused Washam of violating state, federal and local laws.

A spokeswoman for Teamsters Local Union 117, Mary Ann Brennan, says the complaints reflect deteriorating working conditions, but she won't discuss the specifics.

Washam has repeatedly denied the accusations, blaming them on what he says is an effort by the Teamsters to solicit complaints to discredit him.

In March, Washam claimed that under his predecessor, Ken Madsen, the agency skipped hundreds of thousands of property inspections required by state law.

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Information from: The News Tribune, http://www.thenewstribune.com