RAID EXPOSED HIDDEN HABIT

Janetta Gorsich, 41, is a Red River real estate agent, married, with a
17-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter, and she belongs to a family
that owns a popular restaurant in Red River.

Yet until earlier this year, she said Wednesday in court, she had hidden a
secret: She was buying quarter-ounces of cocaine for $250 a pop. A judge
told her Wednesday she shouldn't have been in the cocaine business.

Gorsich pleaded guilty in Albuquerque to one felony count of using the
telephone to facilitate a drug-trafficking offense. She was the third
defendant to plead guilty to federal charges stemming from a federal and
state drug crackdown called "Operation Avalanche," which targeted more than
50 people in Taos County. Half of the defendants are being prosecuted in
federal court.

Patrick H. Cortez of Taos County pleaded guilty March 23 to conspiracy and
Vincent Bailon of Questa pleaded guilty March 29 to using the telephone to
facilitate a drug-trafficking offense.

Under a plea deal with prosecutors, Gorsich and Bailon could each be
sentenced to a maximum of four years in prison. Cortez faces a maximum of
20 years.

At her plea hearing Wednesday, Gorsich told Senior U.S. District Judge John
Edwards Conway that she did not like jail - where she spent 21/2 days after
her arrest.

"It was horrifying," she said. "I will never do that (cocaine) again. My
children had no idea I was doing it. It (the experience) was an awakening
for me."

Gorsich got snagged in a February raid that involved 200 law-enforcement
officers who took out three suspected cocaine-trafficking rings in Taos
County after a yearlong investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon Kimball told Conway that had the case gone
to trial, the government would have proven that Gorsich was buying
quarter-ounces of cocaine for $250 from Anthony Lloyd Vigil, the lead
defendant in the case, who is charged with distributing "large quantities"
of cocaine.

On Nov. 2, a phone call Gorsich made to Vigil to buy cocaine was
intercepted by authorities, according to Kimball. Vigil's case is pending.

"Although it was for her personal use - much of it was for her personal use
- - she did distribute some of it," Kimball said of the cocaine.

Conway asked Gorsich about her case and whether she distributed the drug.

"Yeah, I did," Gorsich said. "I gave some to friends."

Conway also asked about her personal life, and Gorsich said she runs a real
estate office and that her family owns Texas Red's restaurant in Red River.

Conway asked for her age, and when she replied, "41," the judge told her,
"You're too old to be in the cocaine business."

Kimball told Conway several other defendants are negotiating with
prosecutors about possible plea deals.