ADDICTED AND CORRUPTED - Kentucky.com

PRESCRIPTION FOR PAINLEXINGTON HERALD-LEADERPHOTOS BY DAVID STEPHENSON | STAFFMichele Moore talked about how her life has gone since she was crowned Lee County High School’s homecoming queen in 1984. She said she has been to drug treatmentthree times since December 2001. She took down her high school photographs. “I couldn’t look at my pictures, to look at what I was and what I’d become,” she said.BANK LOAN PAYS FORTOWN’S DRUG BUSTFrom preceding pageBusy with its own cases, KSP didn’t get involved.Beach went to the federal Drug EnforcementAdministration, as well, but came away emptyhanded.The agency decided that Beattyville’s problemsdidn’t involve the type of gang activity or violentcrime required for sending a street-level enforcementteam.The city was forced to devise, execute andeven fund its own large-scale crackdown — unusualsteps for a town of its size.Beach didn’t want to go solo, but he said heunderstood other agencies’ reluctance to partnerwith local police.“The credibility of law enforcement in LeeCounty left something to be desired,” Beach saidrecently.In 1990, the FBI had busted Lee County SheriffJohnny Mann and Beattyville Police ChiefOmer Noe for taking money to protect shipmentsof cocaine and marijuana.Authorities said Mann received $44,000 inpayoffs and even deputized two FBI agents whowere posing as drug traffickers. He and Noe wereconvicted of taking bribes.In 1995, Sheriff Douglas Brandenburg was sentencedto nine months in prison after pleadingguilty to obstructing a drug investigation. Witnessestestified that Brandenburg was getting$1,000 a month to protect drug shipments.Given that history, “we had to prove ourselves,”said Beattyville police Officer Matt Easter,who went from directing traffic outside the elementaryschool to coordinating drug buys.Step one was to round up some money. Beattyville’s$500,000 general fund couldn’t begin topay for a major sting operation.So Mayor Beach persuaded the city council totry an alternative. Beach’s family controls the localbank, Peoples Exchange Bank, which agreed toextend a line of credit to the city.The cash was advanced a few thousand dollarsat a time over several months. By the end, Easterand his partner, Capt. Joe Lucas, would spendsome $15,000 on the bust.Easter and Lucas were natural partners. Thepair had been buddies ever since Easter joined theLee County Volunteer Fire Department as a highschool student. There he met Lucas, 13 years hissenior.“He’s sort of like a second father,” said Easter,who with his military crew cut resembles a skinnierversion of Lucas.Neither officer had done undercover work before.They got a state police detective to givethem a crash course.The three of them sat in an unmarked statepolice car in the parking lot of the Save-A-Lotand went over the right way to document a drugbuy, how to set up tape recorders and other details.Afterward, Lucas and Easter went back totheir office, called an electronics company and orderedthe same kind of recorder the state policeuse. They also typed up an evidence form modeledafter one the detective gave them, substituting“Beattyville Police” where it said “KentuckyState Police.”It’s too simple to say all the bad things startedfor Michele Moore on the day in 1994 when sheran into the mayor’s cow.Most of the pain, and medication, came afterthat, but tragedy had already visited: Michele’sfather, Jesse Moore, died of a heart attack in1991.Jesse Moore was the longtime property valuationadministrator for Lee County. A formerteacher in Lee and Owsley counties, he was a pillarof the community.More important, Jesse Moore’s daughter“The credibility of law enforcementin Lee County left something to be desired.”Charles Beach IIIBeattyville mayoradored him. For years, Michele sang at countyfairs. If her father was in the crowd, she’d alwaysdo Daddy’s Hands just for him:I remember Daddy’s handsFolded silently in prayerAnd reachin’ out to hold me,When I had a nightmare.After he died, “I died inside, I guess,” she recalled.The next year, 1992, Moore left the husbandshe’d married at 19 and moved to Lexington.A licensed beautician, she got a job at Supercutsduring the day and worked at a bar a fewnights a week. There was some partying — shetried cocaine a few times and didn’t like it — butnothing that was too far over the top, Mooresaid.Then, on a weekend trip back to Lee Countyin 1994, she drove into a cow owned by MayorBeach. Moore herniated a disc in her back andwas prescribed painkillers.Within a year, she was hooked, she said.Moore’s daughter, Cheyenne, was born in1996. Soon after, Moore’s relationship withCheyenne’s father ended, and she went back toLee County in 1997. She was pregnant with herson, Dylan, within a few months.The prescription drugs had become a seriousproblem. “By ’98, when I had Dylan, I was justeating them,” she said.She tried cocaine again and liked it better thistime. In a while, it was on to methamphetamine.Along the way, Moore said, she was beatenmany times. Once, when she was eight monthspregnant, a man threw her to the floor and helda shotgun to her head, she said.Still, she said, she didn’t feel she had manyoptions. “There’s nothing to do. This is Beattyville,”Moore said. “I come back to the sameold hole.”The Grinch came for her in 2001.Officer Easter and Capt. Lucas found it wasn’teasy trying to run a drug sting in a smalltown.The Beattyville Police Department, with astaff of five, couldn’t spare them for full-timedrug work. So Easter and Lucas would spendhours on accident reports and routine arrests,only to get off shift and then start Grinch duty.Much of the extra time was unpaid, the two said.There were some difficulties along the way. Afew times when Easter met informants on somesmall country road, sitting in a city police car,people spotted them.If word got around that a drug buyer was meetingwith the police, the secrecy of the sting wouldbe ruined. Gossip travels fast in a small town.“We were in the middle of nowhere, and Ithought nobody would drive by. Well, they did,”Easter said. “And you’re wondering, ‘Did we justget caught?’”Once, during the middle of the investigation,the town’s drug problems came uncomfortablyclose. Lucas’ sister, Yvonne Lucas Angel, a dispatcherfor police and emergency services, wasarrested by state police on charges of conspiracyand complicity to sell OxyContin, and conspiracyto sell Tylox.An indictment said she and another defendanttraded drugs for a stolen police radio, an IOU anda dog. The drug charges were dismissed; under aplea agreement, she pleaded guilty this month tocomplicity in receiving stolen property.“No family’s immune to it,” Joe Lucas said.The first Grinch undercover buy was in June2001: four bags of poor-quality cocaine, totalingone gram, for $100.Over the next five months, police said, informantsmade 85 more purchases. The list of allegeddealers grew to eight pages; it includedsales of methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana,Lortab, Xanax, OxyContin and other drugs.The purchases continued through late November.“We could have kept right on going andgot twice that much,” Lucas said.In December, when it came time to start arrestingpeople, state and federal agencies finallysent some help: about a half-dozen officers.Police set up a booking area at the fire stationon Dec. 18, complete with a poster of the meanone, Mr. Grinch. They ran the operation therebecause the police station — located in a renovated1868 house — was too small for the rushof officers and accused drug dealers.Carl Noble, one of those arrested, said thescene was “kind of like going to a high schoolballgame. It was crowded.”Lexington television and newspapers acrossthe state covered the big bust. Beach accepted congratulations,shaking hands and slapping backs.Beattyville police Officer Matt Easter, left; Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Hall, gesturing; and state trooperand former Beattyville officer Joe Lucas, foreground, waited in court during a case from Operation Grinch.Drugs in this seriesLORCET, LORTAB AND VICODIN(clockwise from left)For relief of moderate to moderatelysevere pain. Made from hydrocodone,with aspirin or acetaminophen.Overdose dangers: Slow, shallowbreathing; drowsiness leading to coma;liver damage; in extreme cases, cardiacarrest and death.Street price: $6-10 per pill.OXYCONTINPrescription drug for continuing reliefof long-term, moderate to severe pain.Made from oxycodone, with atime-release mechanism that itsaddicts disarm by crushing pills.Overdose dangers: Abnormally slowheartbeat and low blood pressure;drowsiness leading to coma and death.Street price: About $1 per milligram.Doses range from 20 to 80 milligrams.TYLOXPrescription drug for relief of moderateto moderately severe pain. Made fromoxycodone and Tylenol.Overdose dangers: Depressedbreathing; drowsiness leading to comaand death; liver damage.Street price: Increasingly rare,about $20 a pill.VALIUM, XANAXFor managing anxiety disorders andshort-term relief of anxiety; Xanax alsorelieves panic disorders. Side effectsinclude drowsiness and fatigue.Overdose danger: Confusion,coma, diminished reflexes;with Xanax, risk of death.Street price: $1 to $2 per Valium;$3 to $4 per Xanax.METHAMPHETAMINEWhite powder or clear, chunky crystalscooked in illegal labs; base ingredientis pseudoephedrine, a decongestant.Dangers: Can cause psychotic behavior;brain damage similar to Alzheimer'sdisease; stroke; and epilepsy.Street price: $100 a gram.COCAINEDangers: Powerfully addictive.Cocaine-related deaths are usuallycaused by cardiac arrest or seizures,followed by respiratory arrest.Street price: $100 a gram.MARIJUANADangers: Possible frequent respiratoryinfections; impaired memory andlearning; increased heart rate; anxiety;and panic attacks.Street price: Mexican marijuana sells forup to $1,100 a pound; Kentucky-grownmarijuana sells for about $2,200 apound if it’s grown outdoors or up to$3,200 a pound if it’s grown indoors.