THE RISE AND FALL OF A DRUG EMPIRE

When former St. Louis police officer Antoine Gordon was sentenced last
summer to eight years in prison for helping a violent drug gang
identify informers, it drew the public spotlight away from the others,
including kingpin Adrian Minnis.

But federal agents and prosecutors say the real significance was
missed.

It was a dangerous group, showing sophistication beyond what people
might expect from gangs, U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said.

The case offers a rare glimpse into the workings of a powerful,
dangerous drug lord.

And his gang's undoing is a textbook example of the tactics by which
the Drug Enforcement Administration teams with local police - in this
case to plug a pipeline of heroin from Mexico to the St. Louis area.

The DEA called it "Operation Trifecta."

Minnis, now 35, capitalized on an uptick in the popularity of heroin
here, said Jack Riley, assistant special agent in charge of the DEA in
St. Louis. Increased purity meant it could be snorted or smoked by
customers who might have been too squeamish to inject it.

Moreover, Minnis' gang could change the brown color of the Mexican
heroin to market it as the more coveted "China White," to match
customer demand.

The federal judge who sentenced Minnis to 35 years in prison on drug
charges said he had "wreaked havoc on St. Louis."

The main focus of the prosecution was the 40 to 60 pounds of heroin
the gang sold or planned to sell from safe houses in St. Charles, St.
Louis and St. Louis County. But the gang also brought in cocaine and
marijuana and sent drugs to Chicago and Boston, officials said.

Overall, agents seized $1.2 million in cash plus 66 pounds of cocaine
and 36 pounds of 99-percent-pure methamphetamine that was already in
the St. Louis area or headed here.

Minnis' gang was responsible for much more than that, according to
Riley, who said the ring had handled perhaps $40 million worth of drugs.

Doing business

A review of hundreds of pages of court documents, testimony and DEA
wiretaps, along with interviews with federal agents and prosecutors,
reveals a picture of a man who seemed to be a combination of vicious
pit bull, resourceful Boy Scout and star businessman. The agents and
prosecutors recently agreed to talk now that all the participants have
been sentenced.

Minnis defended his mini-empire with automatic weapons and threats,
intimidating employees and his California drug suppliers alike, Riley
said.

As insurance, Minnis enlisted his cousin, Gordon, a member of a
selective anti-drug and anti-crime unit of the city police, to sniff
out potential informers.

When St. Louis County police pulled over two female couriers in 2004,
each with 60 ounces of black tar heroin hidden in her Lycra shorts,
Minnis was on the cell phone like a choreographer, telling them not to
act nervous and to back away from the SUV so a drug dog wouldn't smell
them, officials said.

After the two were arrested, Minnis called his lawyer to try to figure
out if the women were going to "snitch" on him. They didn't. In fact,
the women later took 10-year federal prison sentences rather than
trade information they surely knew in exchange for terms as short as
three years.

Prosecutors said Minnis had threatened one cooperating witness in
jail, telling him he would never make it to court.

Minnis traveled to the Mexican border in Southern California to
audition heroin suppliers, trying to maximize the purity and minimize
the price to boost his profits back home, evidence in his case showed.

When faced with unfamiliar sources, Minnis used addicts as lab rats to
test the purity of drugs, figuring out how much he could dilute the
product before they complained.

Filling empty pockets

Minnis, who goes by the nicknames "Bo," "Smoke" and "Bo Diddley," was
released in September 2000 from Missouri state prison after serving
nine years of a 12-year murder sentence.

The DEA's Riley and prosecutors said that within days, Minnis used
connections he had made in prison to reach out to suppliers in
California to start filling his empty pockets.

He made mistakes that put him on investigators' radar.

He was a micromanager, Riley said, making much more contact with
street-level dealers than a typical drug ring head. That's what drew
the attention of the DEA in the fall of 2003.

And although he frequently drove vehicles rented by associates, it
helped surveillance agents that he couldn't seem to stay out of his
banana-yellow 1972 Buick Skylark convertible.

A task force was using a confidential informer to make drug buys from
Dennis Spellman, a low-level dealer. Although the quantities were
relatively small, investigators noticed that Spellman went to Minnis
for the drugs and brought the money right back. Riley said that
suggested Minnis was at least a mid-level dealer or supervisor.

Investigators got Spellman's cell phone records and noticed that he
called Minnis before and after a buy. They tapped Spellman's line and
heard him order heroin from Minnis. Then they discovered Minnis'
prison record.

"Lo and behold you got a murderer on the street you gotta pay
attention to," said Riley.

Labeling Minnis as a target, federal agents and local police dug in.
They discovered that Minnis and members of his gang had brushes with
the law going back 13 years, to 1990, when police had found a weapon
and ammunition in Minnis' vehicle.

That same year, airport police were alerted to a suspicious ticket
purchase and caught Minnis at Lambert Field with more than $15,000
cash in a suitcase. He claimed he planned to use the cash to buy a car
in San Diego. No charges resulted.

Police close in

In all, investigators assembled information about more than a dozen
arrests, searches or seizures of drugs, weapons and cash from Minnis
and his associates by St. Louis and St. Louis County police, other
local police, Kansas state troopers, U.S. postal inspectors, DEA
agents and drug task force officers.

Sometimes, local police would be called in to pull over Minnis'
couriers for traffic violations, as a pretext to "discover" drugs the
task force knew would be there.

The case grew to include 15 DEA agents, plus police in St. Louis and
St. Louis County who focused intensely on Minnis' gang for three to
four months, Riley explained. He praised the cooperation as the best
he's even seen.

"Unless we're working hand-in-hand with the city and the county, we
can't get anything done," he noted.

Hanaway, the U.S. attorney, said that in such instances, the feds
benefit from the "increased investigative capacity" of local partners
while local police get access to U.S. funds and prosecution in federal
court, where crimes can be met with longer prison terms and no parole.

Investigators listened to thousands of hours of tapped phone calls -
even as Minnis and his associates would discard their phones and move
to others - and followed their movements.

The hunt expanded to three locations, with help from DEA offices in
California and Mexico, and was named Trifecta. The term means a bet on
a one-two-three horse-race finish.

By July 2004, Minnis was increasingly wary and aggressive as the drug
busts pinched his supply, and he began to suspect that he was under
surveillance. He tightened his customer base, reduced the number of
street-level distributors and went to California to meet with Mexican
suppliers in an attempt to shave his cost per ounce, Riley said.

But he also became sloppy, Riley said. He stopped being as cautious
about what he said on the phone and how he moved around, even though
he talked to associates about being wiretapped and followed.

Riley said investigators had to balance their desire to reach higher
up the drug chain against their concerns about Minnis' potential for
violence as he became "more and more desperate."

In November 2004, investigators closed in, arresting members of the
gang and searching their homes. Minnis confessed that the heroin
seized from the women's shorts had been intended for him, and that at
least three associates had dealt drugs for him.

'Not a monster'

After he was caught, Minnis pleaded for mercy. He blamed his
upbringing and said he was just trying to provide for his extended
family.

One of 12 children, Minnis grew up in poverty in St. Louis, with a
wretched home life. His father abandoned the family when Minnis was
young. Minnis was sexually assaulted at the age of 7 or 8. His father
was fatally shot when Minnis was 9.

His mother, Leta Minnis, was addicted to drugs, and the family was
homeless until a relative bought them a house. Leta Minnis and her
then-boyfriend, Kevin Moore, began selling drugs out of the home,
which quickly became a gathering place known for junkies and
gangbangers.

"Drinking and drugs were the norm," Minnis' attorney said in
court.

Moore, who would later work for Minnis and was eventually convicted,
physically abused the boy, court documents and his attorney said.

Minnis started selling drugs on the street at age 12 or 13 and dropped
out of school in the eighth grade.

In 1991, at 19, Minnis was charged with first-degree murder after a
24-year-old man was fatally shot in the back after a fight over a
40-ounce bottle of beer. Minnis pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of
second-degree murder and armed criminal action, and was sentenced in
1992 to 12 years in prison. In federal court later, he would deny his
guilt, saying he had admitted the crime only to protect a friend.

Leta Minnis was fatally shot on her front porch the day after her son
pleaded guilty in the 1991 slaying. She was 38. It was one of many
drive-by shootings that targeted the house, in the 5000 block of
Vernon Avenue in St. Louis.

Investigators at the time said the shooting might have been an attempt
to retaliate against Adrian Minnis' brother Antonio Minnis, who was
standing nearby and suspected of a shooting two months earlier.

Antonio Minnis and another brother, Terrell Minnis, were arrested in
1997 and accused of fatally beating a man in 1994 and throwing him
into a trash bin. Investigators said they thought the man had
information about their mother's shooting. Both pleaded guilty of
involuntary manslaughter and were sentenced to seven years in prison.

At sentencing in Adrian Minnis' drug case, U.S. District Judge Rodney
W. Sippel said that the defendant "has shown by his past conduct that
he can't stop engaging in criminal activity."

Minnis denied he was a "kingpin," but said, "I never tried to deny my
actions. .. I knew the things I did wasn't right." He said he was
"truly blinded by the money."

He said he was just trying to support his children and his extended
family and apologized to the other members of the conspiracy.

"I feel remorse for these people, man, because these people had lives.
They had kids. They had families. They had wives. And I, you know -
and in the end everybody got convicted ... because it was my phone
that was tapped.

"But I am not a monster, and I didn't kill nobody or hurt nobody out
there but myself," he insisted.

Minnis' attorney, Steven Stenger, said earlier this month: "What do
you expect to occur when somebody falls through the cracks like this
guy did? How's this guy going to turn out?"

Members of Minnis' gang were sentenced to prison terms ranging from
four years to more than 15 years. When Minnis heard that he had been
sentenced to 35 years, he fainted and dropped on his attorney like a
fallen tree.

Minnis, his brothers and Gordon could not be reached for comment. He
has filed an appeal, challenging the length of his sentence and
quantity of drugs attributed to him, and saying the judge should have
ordered a psychological evaluation.

His appeal was scheduled to be heard Feb. 12 in St. Louis but has been
postponed.