Drug kingpins convicted and property seized

With a number of former suppliers and buyers pointing the finger at two Short Mountain farmers, portraying them as drug kingpins, a federal jury this week found Morris Roller and Jeff Young guilty of operating one of the biggest marijuana net-works in the state.

Roller, 53, and Young, 48, were convicted on charges of conspiracy to distribute more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana following a federal jury trial in Chattanooga. They were also ordered to forfeit $1.2 million worth of property, about 75 percent of which will be earmarked for Warren County.

The two face sentencing March 7, at which time Young will face 30 years to life, while Roller will face around 15 years. Young faces more time because of prior convictions.

?They were huge dealers,? said Sheriff Jackie Matheny. ?The federal authorities have told us that Young and Roller were as big a dealers as there were in the state.?

The men were arrested last summer following a long-term investigation by federal, state and local lawmen, centering on their importation and sales of marijuana over several years. The men were business partners with property straddling the Warren-Cannon County line.

Lawmen used an array of undercover agents, wiretap audio tapes and testimony from their drug customers during the trial. The conversations taped between the defendants totaled 117 transcribed pages during the 60 days of federal wire tapping on their phones.

Some of the agents who worked undercover reported being able to purchase several pounds at a time, with a pound of marijuana going for around $1,200.

One agent said she learned the two were getting marijuana smuggled in by truck from Mexico and Dallas, Texas, with the unidentified driver getting $10,000 per load he smuggled into Warren County.

One shipment bound for the suspects was stopped at the Mexican border. A search of the truck, driven by a Hispanic man, revealed it was full of furniture but inside the furniture was hidden a large amount of marijuana. Customs agents testified the marijuana was not stuffed into the furniture, but instead, the furniture had been built around the marijuana so there were no seams.

The truck was sent on to make its delivery to Young?s farm while being followed by federal agents both on the ground and in the air. The Hispanics unloading the truck and its driver were taken into custody but Young was left alone at the time since agents were building a conspiracy case on him.

Another witness during trial testified the defendants paid him $20 per hour to strip marijuana for them, saying he was also given all the marijuana he could smoke.

Another witness, Charles Wayne Goff, himself doing time in a federal penitentiary for drug charges, testified he was selling 100 to 200 pounds of marijuana to Young back in the 1990s, estimating he sold him 4,800 pounds per year at one time.

Another local man, Wayne Ammonett, said he was a customer of Roller?s, buying about a pound per week. Ammonett said the commercial marijuana, which came compressed in bricks from Mexico, was more potent than the homegrown local product.

Prosecutors also offered photographic evidence. Former local sheriff?s investigator, now DeKalb County Sheriff Patrick Ray, told jurors he observed a drug delivery to the Young farm from a military surveillance aircraft which was flying high enough not to be detected but had powerful zoom-telephoto photographic capabilities allowing it to document the activities.

Meanwhile, Tennessee Wildlife authorities reported accidentally catching Roller and Young in a marijuana field after they set up a wildlife camera to capture pictures of deer. When the pictures were developed they reportedly contained pictures of the pair cultivating what was later determined to be a marijuana field.

In all, prosecutors said they had been watching the men to some degree since the early 1990s.