By Lauren Pack
The Middletown Journal
MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — The Middletown Division of Police has received $182,604 as its share of seized assets from 20 convicted drug dealers.
Lt. Rodney Muterspaw led the team of detectives, which included Larry Fultz and David Birk, now a sergeant, in an lengthy investigation the resulted in the arrest of members of a Los Angles drug ring.
“Our detectives, Fultz and Birk, did a fantastic job with this case,” Muterspaw said. “Because of the number of criminal convictions and the amount of money seized, this is, no doubt, the largest drug criminal investigation in which our police department has ever been involved.”
During 2005 and 2006, Middletown police became aware of a gang of drug dealers working in the Middletown and Southwestern Ohio area who were bringing large amounts of drugs into the area from Los Angeles, Calif.
Building a case with the cooperation of the FBI and other police departments in Ohio and California, 19 Middletown-area drug dealers were arrested and convicted and are now serving time in federal prisons.
Middletown detectives joined with Los Angeles police officers to raid the mansion of the leader, Clarence Remble, 48, who is now serving a life sentence in prison.
Remble, known as “The General,” was running a drug network in several small Ohio cities from his residence in Compton, Calif. He was the leader of the California-based gang known as “The Dodge City Crips” and was found guilty in U.S. District Court for the Southern District in Cincinnati of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, crack cocaine, powder cocaine, prescription drugs and marijuana.
He was found guilty of establishing drug distribution networks in Middletown, Zanesville, Coshocton and Reynoldsburg. Other southwest Ohio cities became “branch offices” for the Los Angeles gang of drug dealers until a lengthy undercover investigation involving the FBI ended with a federal indictment, according to police and court records.
Police said the distribution process was as easy as renting an apartment for the stash and mailing the goods and cash.
The drug dealers indicted — eight of whom are in the Middletown area — are known to police as “recruits” or associates on the lower levels of a dangerous web of drug dealers reaching across the country and into small cities.
When Middletown police and FBI agents rounded up the suspects in the summer of 2005, Fultz and Birk were in California looking into the eyes of Remble, a high-level member of the Crips.
Fultz said Remble’s introduction to Middletown began in the Preble County Jail where Remble and another man had been picked up on Interstate 70 by the Ohio Highway Patrol in a car containing four kilos of cocaine. A Monroe man, John Wayne Jones, was also in the Preble County Jail.
“They struck up a conversation and the next thing we know, he (Jones) is showing Remble around town,” Fultz said following Remble’s trial.
It didn’t take long for crystal meth or “ice” to appear on the streets of Middletown.
Testimony presented at trial last summer proved that Remble arranged for the transfer of 20 kilograms of cocaine from California that was processed in Ohio into crack cocaine, according to the United States Attorney’s Office. He also arranged for shipments of high-purity methamphetamine, prescription drugs and bulk quantities of marijuana to drug distribution cells he had established in the area.
Drugs arrived in the area via ordinary shipping companies, and Remble communicated with the Middletown operators through cell phones and e-mail.
“He was a major dealer with a long criminal past,” Fultz said in 2006 after the trial. “He ran his operation like the military ... That’s why they called him ‘The General.’”
As a result of these drug convictions, homes, cars and assets were seized and handed over to the government for distribution to those involved in the case – police departments, FBI, prosecutors and others. Middletown police, being the lead agency in the case, received the largest share of the nearly $1 million distributed.
According to federal guidelines, the money can be used only for drug enforcement. Middletown will likely use the money to replace badly outdated and worn equipment – such as safety tactical vests, covert wire recording devices or undercover cars, police officials said.
While Middletown police are often involved in other drug arrests and convictions, this is largest pay out they’ve ever received, according to officials. The funds are used to step up the on-going drug investigation system and cannot be used to hire police officers.
Copyright 2008 The Middletown Journal