Posted on 01/17/2004 6:06:08 PM PST by Beck_isright
Man convicted of operating 'drug house'
By TOM MORTON
Star-Tribune staff writer
A federal jury convicted a Casper man last week for owning a building where he knew methamphetamine was distributed.
John Spencer Hurt, 47, was indicted on Feb. 26, 2003, on one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and one count of knowingly making the building at 948 N. Park St. available for storing, distributing or using methamphetamine, according to the indictment.
The indictment occurred as a result of the investigation and prosecution of five other methamphetamine dealers, said Assistant District Attorney Ken Marken, who helped prosecute the case in U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson's court. Marken also acts as a special U.S. attorney in the prosecution of drug crimes.
Hurt owned the apartment building and rented it to several Mexican illegal aliens who distributed about 15 kg, or 33 pounds, of methamphetamine in the Casper area, Marken said. The illegal aliens also worked from another building in Casper and one in Evansville, he added.
The trial marked the first time in Wyoming that the new federal "drug house" charge was levied at a defendant, Hurt's defense attorney Tom Sedar said.
Last week, the jury in U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson's court in Cheyenne acquitted Hurt of the conspiracy charge, but found him guilty on the drug house charge, according to court records.
Sedar said he plans to appeal the conviction to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Hurt, who has no prior felony convictions, faces a sentence of between zero and 20 years imprisonment, and up to a $500,000 fine, according to court records.
His sentencing is scheduled for March 19, Marken said.
Hurt also is a co-owner of another building, the Alibi Bar and Lounge at 1740 E. Yellowstone Highway, where some drug activity allegedly occurred, according to Assistant District Attorney Ken Marken, who helped prosecute the case in U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson's court.
Hurt owns the bar with several other people, including Natrona County Circuit Court Judge H. Steven Brown, according to Brown and public records.
But Brown had no knowledge of Hurt's alleged activities, according to Brown, Marken and Sedar.
Brown declined to comment on Hurt's case.
"All I can say is I own stock in a business, and one of the shareholders had a problem," Brown said. "Is that where I want to be? No. But I don't know how I can control it."
Brown, who became a Circuit Court judge in 1998, blames much of the local criminal activity on methamphetamine, he said. "I don't think there is a business in Casper that has not been affected by methamphetamine. This stuff is just a cancer on our community."
Hurt has been involved as a shareholder of the Alibi for about seven years, according to the bar's liquor license renewal application.
The other owners hired Hurt to be the Alibi's general manager before that, Brown said. Brown inherited the bar from his father Harold, who founded it in 1980 and died in 1996.
In March 2003, Brown received a call from the prosecutor in the case two days after Hurt's arrest, he said. "That was the first time I knew there was a crime or an investigation."
Brown then talked with the other owners of the Alibi, he said. "We decided to fire Hurt because there were allegations that he had been selling it out of the bar."
Hurt still owns 15 percent of the company's stock, according to its current liquor license on file with the City of Casper.
Brown also asked the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) to search the bar with a drug-seeking dog, he said.
No illegal drugs were found, Brown said.
This marked the second time he asked law enforcement to search the bar, he said, recalling a time when a waitress was allegedly selling drugs.
He has recused himself once or twice, or declared his ownership interest, when defendants who allegedly committed crimes at the Alibi have had to appear in Natrona County Circuit Court, he said.
Brown does not believe that his ownership of the Alibi violates wording in the Wyoming Code of Judicial Conduct that cautions judges to avoid appearances of impropriety, he said. "If I felt it was a violation of the code, I wouldn't do it."
John Burman, a professor of law and ethics at the University of Wyoming College of Law, while not speaking about Brown's situation, said there is nothing wrong with a judge owning a business.
But ownership may become a problem if it crosses a line about the appearance of impropriety, Burman said.
"The issue of 'appearance to whom' has become a hotly debated issue," he said, adding that courts look at appearance to a "reasonable person."
The public feels better if they believe they were treated fairly, regardless of the outcome of a legal action, Burman said. "Our whole system is premised on the idea that the whole court system is a notch above everything else."
Wyoming? Sheesh!
33 pounds of that poison is enough to get the entire city of Chicago jacked up. This invasion is so out of control..
This invasion is truly coast to coast, nationwide.....Homeland security? LOL!
It is sad to look at the pictures of colored bathrooms and water fountains in the American south only 50 years ago. It was a sad revelation to hear about the Tuskegee syphilis experiments that continued until the 70s. I ask myself how this kind of thing can happen in reasoned times.
Then I see the reasoned thought of today's right fringe Freepers.
illegal immigration = 20 million drug dealers.
Maybe mankind hasn't progressed as far as I thought.
Totally untrue. Methamphetamine manufacture has exploded in the last decade and Mexicans are so often involved in it. In labs in the USA and imports from Mexico. The easy availability of meth has created more customers. Makes it easier to yield to temptation.
It wasn't implied. You spelled it out for me. I only reiterated your own words.
But don't worry, 20 million more won't affect the crime rate.
The meaning of your words are clear to me.
illegal immigration = 20 million drug dealers.
They are your words. Have I misunderstood what you wrote, or are you afraid to stand behind your statement?
My response wasn't a "bot response" it was a human being response. I see illegal immigrants as humans yearning for a better way of life. Other people see them only as sub-human leeches who deal drugs and collect welfare. I have a real problem with people who think that way. They were the same kind of people who excused, cheered, and followed Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. I think they are sick in the head.
The portion of them that deal drugs and collect welfare really are just sub-human leeches --- whatever portion of them are that are --- Over a third are collecting some or many kinds of welfare and a fairly high number are smuggling and dealing in drugs. Those engaging in felony document fraud, using stolen identities and social security numbers are criminals --- sub human leeches. Those otherwise honest types --- who might be working hard for cash and aren't committing other crimes would be in another category.
But the demand for drugs isn't being satisfied in such a large part by a country like Canada which shares and even longer border. It's a problem fairly unique to countries like Mexico which has a very corrupt government and politicians that are readily bought and owned by drug cartels. Mexico is being destroyed from within ---- it's crime rate is skyrocketing upward.
I have already done so twice on this very thread…I know you realize this because you keep denying your own words in a painfully pathetic attempt to distance yourself from them…here they are again. Title: Man convicted of operating 'drug house'(Illegal Alien Crime News Again)
But don't worry, 20 million more won't affect the crime rate.
I see illegal immigrants as humans yearning for a better way of life.
So based on this, you're a socialist or communist.
Perhaps you are not a bigot, but just mentally defective…not that the 2 are usually separate maladies.
Yet you cheer for policies that Stalin, Mao, Castro and many other communist dictatorships believe in; borderless socities where the capitalists elites are brought down a peg by stealing their hard work and redstributing it to the "poor" people willing to violate the United States Constitution for their own profit.
Yep. You're not too bright. Look up the border around East Berlin for as a start to educate yourself in how the commies love free borders. Before 1989, most of the borders between Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, such as Ukraine and Belarus, were sealed, guarded and all travel restricted. Cuba has its own physical border…it’s called water. If people are caught fleeing Cuba they are arrested or killed…look up “13 de Marzo tug boat.” When Elian’s mother drowned bringing him to Florida Clinton and people like you demanded he be sent back. Dubya says people have “A God given right to Freedom.” You see no value in the lives of struggling people. You want a Berlin wall around the US. You have more in common with the socialist and communist than I do. I agree with Ronald Reagan…
“I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get there. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.” Farewell Address to the Nation, January 11, 1989
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