PRESCRIPTION FOR PAINLEXINGTON HERALD-LEADERBeattyville police officer Matt Easter, left; prosecutor Tom Hall; BeattyvilleMayor Charles Beach III; and <strong>Kentucky</strong> State Trooper Joe Lucas listenedto a guilty plea in Lee Circuit Judge William Trude Jr.’s chambers.PUSHING FOR JUSTICE◆WHEN DRUG CASES FINALLY REACH COURTIN BEATTYVILLE, THERE ARE NO GUARANTEESOriginally published Jan. 27, 2003By Tom Lasseter and Bill EstepHERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERSBEATTYVILLE — Mayor Charles BeachIII had just begun to savor Operation Grinch,a major drug bust by his police department,when the phones started to ring.With the defendants behind bars, a groupof citizens was making calls, sending e-mailand knocking on doors throughout Beattyville.Come to court on Dec. 21, 2001, callerssaid. Help make a show of force.The group, People Encouraging People,was formed to fight substance abuse in thetown. Its members wanted the judge and theprosecutor to know they supported tough sentences,said Lynda Congleton, who helpedcreate PEP.When the day arrived, and indictmentswere presented, nearly 40 friends and neighborsjoined Mayor Beach and Congleton inLee Circuit Court.Beach surveyed the scene and said, “Ithink the rest of the story will be how thecourts deal with these cases.”Circuit Judge William W. Trude Jr. wasnot impressed.“When you get 100 people up there sittingin the courtroom trying to put pressure onthe court, you’ve got a problem,” Trude saidrecently. “I think they were trying to intimidateme, and if I let that happen, what kind ofjudge am I?”Congleton, Beach and others assembledthe crowd out of fear that the Grinch bustwould end in little more than dismissals andprobation. That sort of thing had happenedbefore — usually because prosecutors agreedto plea bargains or had questions about thequality of police evidence.Also, some in Beattyville feared whatTrude, who by his own admission has hadpersonal contact with drug suspects, might dowith the cases.The stakes were high for Beattyville, andthe small Eastern <strong>Kentucky</strong> <strong>com</strong>munity wasno longer keeping quiet.Operation Grinch had its roots in outrage— outrage Beach and others felt as theywatched drugs crawl up from the streets intopolite society.In Lee County, census data show, the gapbetween rich and poor is greater than in anyother <strong>Kentucky</strong> county.For people in Beattyville, one aspect of thedivide is clear: You live either at the top of thehill, or at the bottom.At the top are people like Mayor Beach,whose family controls the town bank, PeoplesExchange Bank. He resides in an affluent enclavecalled Gourley Heights and keeps a$500,000 home in Lexington.Then there are those who live in mobilehomes with trash in the yard, like the one atthe bottom of Beach’s hill, which he passesdaily in his BMW.For decades, the embarrassment of drugaddiction simply had not climbed the hill.That changed during the 1990s.“You started seeing how rampant it was,”said Lynda Congleton, whose husband, TerryCongleton, runs a large family business, includinga hardware store that began in 1921.One of Lynda Congleton’s stepdaughters,Camille, was a little girl in 1984, whenMichele Moore was crowned Beattyville’shome<strong>com</strong>ing queen. Camille recalls standingin the crowd, watching the parade. She wantedto be just like the queen.Moore was charged in the Grinch operationwith trafficking drugs, just like 48 otheralleged dealers.Camille Congleton grew up to join a groupof kids of Beattyville elite who began usingdrugs during the 1990s. Another, whose drugtreatment is documented in court records,was Cherry Jackson, the daughter of a formercircuit judge.Jackson peeled away in a red Camaro in responseto an interview request.During high school, Camille Congleton recalled,the group “just ruled the school upthere.”PHOTOS BY DAVID STEPHENSON | STAFFTrude talked with attorneys who are involved in an Operation Grinch case. Trude says he has hadpersonal contact with drug suspects outside the courtroom.“The way we wanted it,” she said, “wasthe way it was.”Today, Congleton lives in a mobile home inLee County and says she no longer usesdrugs. As she sat on the sofa with herboyfriend last month and spoke about her life,Congleton’s eyes got wet.“Look at what I could have had, and lookat what I am. I will never get that back,” shesaid.Her experiments with drugs started as flirtation,she said. By the end, she saw a lot ofugly things.“There’s a lot of being taken advantage of.Pill dealers think they have this power overyou,” Congleton said. “They say, ‘I’ve gotwhat you need. What are you willing to do forit?’”She shifted around on the sofa andchanged the subject.When talking about the young women,Mayor Beach looks un<strong>com</strong>fortable, too. Itwasn’t until his friends began having problemsin their families that he realized somethingneeded to be done, he said.“That’s really where my passion camefrom,” Beach said.Jennifer Burgess, a friend of Beach’sdaughter, often came over after school whenshe was younger.Burgess, the daughter of a local schoolboard member, was arrested in 1999 and accusedof forging one of her father’s checks.The case was dismissed, but only after LarryBurgess told the judge that his daughter wasaddicted to Tylox and Xanax. She was sent toa drug-rehabilitation center.“This child grew up in our house. She wasbeautiful and smart as hell,” Beach said.Jennifer Burgess declined to <strong>com</strong>ment,saying she didn’t want to embarrass her family.Others also suffered the pain of a child’saddiction.In 1997, prosecutor Tom Hall’s wife,Karen, submitted a statement during the sentencingof a drug dealer. Karen Hall said thedealer sold Tylox to her daughter, Lyn Pelfrey.Pelfrey wouldn’t <strong>com</strong>ment for this storybeyond saying she’s clean these days. Sheadded that the drug problem is worse in Beattyvillethan it has ever been. “They just needto stop it,” Pelfrey said. “It’s crazy. It’s killingpeople.”Karen Hall wrote in the statement thather daughter traded the dealer $2,000 worthof jewelry — presents she had received fromher parents and grandmother on her 16thbirthday and other occasions. Pelfrey alsohocked $800 worth of her sister’s jewelry andstole money from the family, her motherwrote.The Halls eventually had Pelfrey arrestedto force her into treatment, according toKaren Hall’s statement. “A part of me diedthat day.”“When you give birth to a child, you wantonly the best for that child and you work sohard to attain that,” Karen Hall wrote. “Whenyou have to face the fact that your child is adrug addict, it tears your heart out …”The man who allegedly sold drugs to Hall’sdaughter was arrested in a drug operation in1995.Few of the accused in that roundup weresentenced to prison — which made some inBeattyville apprehensive about the local justicesystem.Fifteen cases made their way through LeeCircuit Court; 11 were probated. One was dismissedafter the defense cited insufficient evidenceand the prosecution agreed. Under aplea deal, another defendant got seven weekendsin jail.Two cases went to trial. In one, the juryre<strong>com</strong>mended that Frankie Brandenburg, theman accused of selling to Hall’s daughter,serve 15 years. Judge Trude gave him 10.(The charges were dismissed three years later,after the <strong>Kentucky</strong> Court of Appeals overturnedthe verdict. By then, Brandenburg wasout on parole.)In the other trial, a defendant chargedwith selling Tylox was sentenced to eightyears. But after the defense asked for shockprobation — a request that the prosecutorsaid he opposed — Judge Trude freed the defendantin less than 11 months.Trude, who has been on the bench formore than a decade, says it’s unfair to pin thelack of prison time on him or any other judge.Several factors — from weak police workto ineffective prosecution — can get casesthrown out, he noted, but the public sees it aslight punishment for drug criminals.A 1997 roundup was little different. Of 12people facing drug-dealing charges in circuitcourt, eight got probation as a result of pleabargains.“A lot of times, you have to <strong>com</strong>promise thecase by going for a plea for probation just toavoid trial,” said prosecutor Tom Hall. “Becauseyou know if you go to trial, you’re going to lose.”Prosecutors were pushed toward cuttingplea deals for the ’97 defendants when aninformant began signing statements sayingshe would not testify.Also of concern, according to court records,was that some grand-jury proceedings were notrecorded, and in at least one case, undercoverpolice tapes “simply had music on them.”The lone defendant who had to servetime?Frankie Brandenburg, the same man whohad been accused of selling drugs to TomHall’s stepdaughter. His 10-year sentence wasrun alongside his 1995 case.The mishaps behind the dismissals andmost of the probations were beyond Trude’scontrol, but it’s clear that some people inBeattyville don’t have much confidence in thejudge.Even Trude acknowledges the persistenttalk in his circuit that he associates with drugdealers, and rumors that he himself usesdrugs.“I hear it about myself. I hear it abouteverybody. It’s just a perception they have,”Trude said in an interview this month. “Idon’t know what to do about that.”One reason for the rumors, Trude says, isthat he collects agate, a semi-precious stone.The people who <strong>com</strong>e over to his house toshow him rocks have included some who solddrugs in the past, he said.“But that doesn’t bother me,” Trude said.“They’re not out there selling me drugs.They’re not selling drugs now, as far as Iknow. I don’t critique people who sell agate.All I do is buy the rocks.”Just last month, in a deposition, a longtimefriend of Trude’s testified that he knewthe judge had used drugs.“Judge Trude and I were friends for a numberof years and I know a lot about his drughabits and I can prove them all,” said OlinEstes, who had served as one of Trude’s trial<strong>com</strong>missioners.That testimony came as part of Estes’ bitterdivorce from his former wife, TammyEstes. Trude said a big factor in the acrimonyis that Tammy Estes now lives with him.The judge denied Olin Estes’ allegationand said that he’s contemplating filing suitagainst his former friend.“If he’s got proof of anything like that, heneeds to bring it out,” the judge said.“Hell, I’ll go take a test today, tomorrow orwhenever you want,” he said.Trude also said that he once asked a formergirlfriend to leave his house when he discoveredher cocaine on his kitchen floor.In the past, Trude has taken campaigncontributions from people who later madeheadlines for ties to drug trafficking.Among the contributions he received in1991, for his last contested race, was a $750in-kind donation of food for a fish fry fromPaul “Buddy” Johnson of Lee County. Trudealso got a $750 donation of food from JudyLittle, owner of Cotton’s Restaurant inOwsley County and wife of Willis “Cotton”Little.The next year, Johnson and Cotton Littlewere arrested at Little’s home in rural OwsleyCounty when state police and the FBI burst inand confiscated more than 100 pounds ofmarijuana.See next page
PRESCRIPTION FOR PAINLEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER“WHAT I HOPE HAPPENS IS WE HAVE AHEALTHIER COMMUNITY,” SAID LYNDACONGLETON, WHO HELPED START AGROUP TO FIGHT SUBSTANCE ABUSE.PHOTOS BY DAVID STEPHENSON | STAFFCamille Congleton was among a group of children of the Beattyville elite who began abusing drugs during the 1990s. Today, she laments what she could have been and what she has be<strong>com</strong>e.COURT’S PAST LEADS TO FEARFrom preceding pageThe pair pleaded guilty to drug charges.During a trial in 1994, a key prosecution witnesstestified that Johnson paid former LeeCounty Sheriff Douglas Brandenburg to protecthis drug business. Brandenburg laterpleaded guilty to obstructing a drug investigation.Little and Johnson declined to <strong>com</strong>ment.Trude said that after the men were arrested,he went to state police and volunteeredthat they had made the contributions.“They never offered me anything; theynever asked for anything,” said the judge,who also said, “You certainly can’t run a courtsystem doing favors for people.”Trude said he was unaware of the men’scriminal connections during his campaign.But another of his 1991 contributors had runafoul of the law before he gave to the candidate.In 1989, Estill County car dealer Delmus“Bunt” Gross was sentenced to five yearsfor laundering drug money through his carlot.Then in October 1991, while appealing hisconviction, Gross provided two dressed hogsworth $355.50 for another Trude fund-raiser,according to finance records.Gross recently said he didn’t rememberbuying the hogs but conceded that he mighthave.Trude said he probably knew aboutGross’s conviction at the time. “Obviously, ifit bothered me I wouldn’t have taken thepigs,” he said.Despite concerns about the past, Beattyvillepolice Capt. Joe Lucas was expectingbig things from the drug cases he had builtwith Officer Matt Easter.“When I went into this, we had high hopesof getting a lot convicted and gone, getting alot of the drug dealers off the street,” said Lucas,who has since moved on to a job with thestate police.“I was hoping to actually clean up ourcounty fairly quick, but they’re still out heredoing it,” Lucas said.Of the 49 Grinch defendants, only twohave gone to trial, and the out<strong>com</strong>es sentmixed signals. The jury re<strong>com</strong>mended sevenyears in one. The other ended in mistrial.In the mistrial case, Sharon Bray was facingtwo counts of selling Lortabs. Her casewas the first to go to trial, and she said herlawyer said “they were going to make an exampleout of me.”Last June, three jurors were not convincedby a tape of Bray allegedly arranginga drug deal and taking money. Police and aninformant also testified that Bray solddrugs.A new trial is scheduled for next month.“It was like, we’ve just wasted countlessmoney and countless hours,” Easter said. Hewas in the courtroom when the verdict, orlack thereof, was read.Two other Grinch offenders pleadedguilty in district court. Each was given ayear, but 335 days of that were probated,leaving just 30 to serve. And one case wasdismissed when the drugs, thought to bemorphine, turned out to be some other substance.In three other Grinch cases, prosecutorsarranged plea deals that are unusually toughfor drug cases in Lee County: two for fiveyears in prison, the other for six.Hall said he intends to oppose any motionsfor shock probation in those cases —though his opposition doesn’t always matter,he acknowledged. “If they get it, it’s not goingto be with my blessing,” he said.In a pending case, a potential problem forthe prosecution surfaced. In it, Trude suppressedthe testimony and undercover tapesof one of the main informants for Grinch aftera special prosecutor failed to produce medicalrecords.The defense was entitled to records fromany institutions where the informant hadbeen treated for psychological disorders “sothat this Court can determine her <strong>com</strong>petencyto testify as a witness,” according to acourt order.With 41 cases to go, it remains to be seenwhat kind of message the courts’ handling ofthe Grinch cases will send about drug chargesin Lee County.One defendant, Carl Noble, who was arrestedduring Grinch on charges of sellingmarijuana and Lortab, doesn’t seem too troubled.“I could’ve sold some (marijuana), but notno pills. They just made that up,” Noble said.He has had four drug-related charges dismissed,probated or thrown out since 1993.While showing a visitor the three marijuanaplants in his front yard last summer,Noble ran his hand up a stalk and offered thepungent smell on his fingers as proof of quality.Is it a bad idea for a man charged withtrafficking the stuff to be showing it off in hisyard?Noble shrugged. “Well,” he said, “it’s just a$100 fine and $82.50 court costs.”Since Beattyville first began grapplingwith the issue, it has had some successes infighting drugs.Mayor Beach spearheaded the constructionof a mental health counseling center,which will offer substance-abuse treatment.He hopes that it will eventually feature residentialcare.Judge Trude is mulling the idea of a drugcourt program that would help him monitoroffenders more closely.And the PEP group has won hundreds ofthousands of dollars in grants for its programsto try to keep young people from gettinginto trouble with drugs.“What I hope happens is we have a healthier<strong>com</strong>munity,” Lynda Congleton said. “It’snot impossible if we pull together.”As for Michele Moore, 18 years after herhome<strong>com</strong>ing parade, she still lives in LeeCounty. Until a couple of weeks ago, she wasstaying in a small house with particleboardceilings and junk cars in the yard.Mounds of dirty clothes and trash litteredthe home. There was a pile of tools and carparts on the kitchen floor.On Jan. 10, Moore moved back into herold mobile home, the same one she was inwhen the police came for her during OperationGrinch in 2001.Her mother, Patty, also still lives in thecounty but is trying to sell her house.“I feel like I’m a prisoner in my own home,and my life. I’m embarrassed to go out, andI’m bitter,” Patty Moore said. “I don’t even dogrocery shopping or go into town anymore …I feel like they’re looking at me and tellingeach other, ‘Do you know Michele is a drugaddict?’”Grinch wasn’t the end of Michele Moore’slegal troubles. Last March, state police arrestedher on charges of selling what she said wasmethamphetamine. As in the Grinch case, itlater turned out not to be.Also in March, Beattyville police chargedMoore with making a false report by sayingthat her home had been burglarized. Policesaid she had been seen selling the items shereported missing.About four months later, she was chargedwith forging her aunt’s signature on checksthat were allegedly stolen.Moore is scheduled to stand trial in LeeDistrict Court in a couple months for thestate-police bust and false-report charge.In the entry to the courthouse, there’s aplaque that hangs in honor of Jesse Moore,the county’s former property valuation administrator,who died in 1991.Carved on the plaque are the words, “Fatherof Michele Moore.”It’s hard to say whether his daughter willstop in front of his picture and read the manyac<strong>com</strong>plishments listed below. “Sometimes Ican’t even look at him,” she said.Whatever passes through her mind,Michele Moore, once the future of Beattyville,probably won’t linger before walking upstairs,to the courtroom.She will be there, after all, to answer forwhat she has be<strong>com</strong>e.Since March, Michele Moore, Beattyville’s former home<strong>com</strong>ing queen, has been charged with traffickingwhat she said was methamphetamine; making a false report to police; and forging her aunt’s checks.Moore is scheduled to stand trial in March for charges in the trafficking bust and the false-report charge.
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