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Pataskala in the Dispatch

The Pataskala connection
Donald G. Dailey Jr., once a small-time dealer in Licking County, was able to move more than $100 million worth of marijuana through connections with a Mexican cartel.
Sunday, March 29, 2009 5:48 AM
By Josh Jarman

PATASKALA, Ohio -- They moved marijuana in the walls of recreational vehicles and in construction equipment under layers of hardened tar. They talked in code on disposable cell phones and kept guns in every room of the house.
And under the direction of one man, a group of 15 people operated a $100 million drugsmuggling ring for more than five years from a house on the outskirts of Pataskala.
Donald G. Dailey Jr. had become one of the largest drug traffickers in central Ohio. He had a reputation for violence that caused one criminal to choose prison rather than turn on Dailey.
In Dailey's Licking County home, federal agents and Columbus police found $3.2 million in cash sealed behind a shelf in a downstairs bathroom, 83 guns and more than a ton of marijuana in a trailer in the driveway. Yet his crimes went largely unnoticed by most community members.
This month, Dailey pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and drug-trafficking charges. And for the first time, details emerged that helped explain how Dailey went from smalltown dope dealer to the leader of a major drug ring.
The 40-year-old former construction worker and electrician first learned the trade by buying pounds of marijuana from a Mexican drug cartel dealer in the early 1990s. After a short stint in prison, Dailey got back into the game in 2001.
''The price of marijuana is based on the risk you're willing to take,'' said Columbus police Sgt. Bill Mingus, who worked on the investigation. ''If you're willing to drive to Texas or Arizona and pick it up, it's a lot cheaper.''
That's how Dailey got so big.
As early as 2004, he began to recruit people to ferry the drugs into Columbus for him. He found willing recruits among employees of his electrical company, or forced buyers who owed him money to make the trips to pay back their debts.
Dailey would buy used vehicles and transfer the title two or three times among members of his gang before finally signing it over to that week's courier to prevent suspicion if the courier were caught.
Once his drivers were on the road, Dailey would fly to Arizona and meet with Mexican drug dealers to pick out the type and quantity of marijuana he wanted. The organization found a dozen ways to transport the weed, but two favorites were in the walls of RVs or loaded inside kettles used to take roofing tar to construction sites.
The drugs were then taken to Dailey's Pataskala home - or to a Columbus salvage yard owned by one of his co-conspirators - to be divided and sold. It wasn't long before Dailey began to buy up property, guns and cars in an effort to launder some of the money.


By this is just what we need here!

Pataskala continued

Stephen Blunk, an Internal Revenue Service agent, said it is not unusual for drug dealers to create several front companies to hide their profits. In Dailey's case, he operated several businesses including an electrical-contracting company and a property-rental firm.
The top dealers of the organization would write fake checks to one another from their phony businesses for ''services rendered'' as a way to mask the proceeds from their drug sales, Blunk said.
Four of Dailey's couriers were arrested in traffic stops within two months in 2006 while transporting thousands of pounds of marijuana. Two of the men went to prison. Dailey paid their attorneys fees and had his wife send them money in prison.
The other two men talked to investigators, however, and scrutiny of Dailey built slowly. A joint task force was created to investigate the ring. It comprised agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency, IRS and Columbus police, who already were looking into two members of the ring.
In 2007, a local drug user named Dana Cashdollar burned down a house next to one of Dailey's properties to gain respect from Dailey's organization. Pataskala police heard that Dailey might be connected to the crime, but when pressed by prosecutors, Cashdollar clammed up.
Cashdollar said he would rather spend 10 years in prison than cooperate with authorities, said Licking County Assistant Prosecutor Earl ''Duke'' Frost.
Court documents hint at Dailey's capacity for violence. He once offered to help one of his buyers find someone to kill the person who stole marijuana from him. The buyer later became an informant for the IRS.
And a neighbor who called police with suspicions about the number of vehicles coming to and going from one of Dailey's houses now sleeps with a gun next to the bed out of fear of reprisal.
Pataskala police heard plenty of rumors about criminal activity involving Dailey and his brother, Tim, but nothing concrete, said Deputy Chief Bruce Brooks. With the department's tight budget, Brooks said there was no way he could legitimize constant surveillance on Dailey's house without hard evidence.
Then, last March, an offduty Columbus police officer was driving home to Pataskala when he noticed an RV with Texas plates pulling into Dailey's driveway.
He called it in to members of the task force, who got a search warrant for the RV and the house.
Dailey and his brother were arrested. Six months later, the U.S. attorney's office indicted the rest of the 15-person gang. All either have pleaded or are expected to plead guilty. The latest was Melvin Blevins, 19, who pleaded guilty Thursday to his role in the conspiracy as well as forcing his then-18-month-old niece to smoke marijuana in January 2008 and videotaping it. He faces 15 years to life in prison.
When Blevins was arrested, police found a .22-caliber pistol in his front pocket. He told police that Dailey gave him the gun to protect Dailey's 16-year-old daughter, whom Blevins was dating, from the Mexican mafia.
Dailey pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, illegal possession of firearms and continuing criminal enterprise. The last charge carries a mandatory life prison sentence. A sentencing date has not been set.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David DeVillers said that if Dailey provides substantial assistance in investigating other people associated with the case, the U.S. attorney's office could ask the court to consider waiving the mandatory sentences.
So far, federal agents have recovered more than $6 million, proceeds from the drug ring's operations. The latest was $1.6 million buried in ammo boxes on a remote Huron County farm.
DeVillers said the money only scratches the surface.
''We'll probably never find all the money.''
jjarman@dispatch.com

poor point

I think trying to link this drug runner to the fact that Pataskala merged a few years ago is a stretch. I guess what the poster is saying that because of the merger the Pataskala police department is under staffed and under funded. This was the result of over zealous people rushing to get a new city merged and forgot about the details. One of those details was adequate funding of city services. We should all be aware of that if our community would move in that direction.

One final point; yes the number of sworn officers per thousand residents in Pataskala is low but it is higher than the officers per thousand of Violet Township.