BIDS ON SEIZED CAR COLLECTION WILL HAVE TO WAIT

Car buffs will have to wait at least a year before the state auctions
off more than 35 vehicles police seized this week from a duo accused
of selling marijuana for more than 25 years.

The state must go through a civil court process before it can legally
take possession of the property police say.

Clarence Deberry and his ex-wife amassed during the decades they
spent supplying pot to Indiana drug dealers.

With all the legal paperwork and appeals, State Police 1st Sgt. Dave
Busten said any auction is probably a year or two away.

At an age when many people retire, police said the Deberrys sold
hundreds of pounds of marijuana a week. Investigators ended the drug
sales operation and seized more than $1 million in classic cars, cash
and other property. Troopers said Deberry, 69, and his ex-wife Phoebe
Deberry, 59, sold 26 pounds of marijuana to an undercover police
officer during a four-month investigation.

"This is certainly no way to supplement Social Security," said Marion
County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi.

The Deberrys lived together in a home in the 300 block of South
Lockburn Street on the city's Westside. Police said they were among
the biggest dealers in the state and spent much of their profit on
automobiles. The car collection includes a 1957 Chevrolet, a 1967
Corvette, a 1999 Plymouth Prowler, a 1929 Ford Model A and a 2003
Harley-Davidson V-Rod motorcycle. The couple stored the vehicles in a
warehouse on the Westside at Airport Expressway and Holt Road, where
many had a thick layer of dust.

Officers also seized more than 40 pounds of marijuana, which Indiana
State Police Maj. Larry Turner said was thought to have been smuggled
in from Mexico. Police would not say how they came to suspect the two
were selling drugs.

The Deberrys owned two homes and a vacant lot in Marion County,
police said. Last month, investigators said, the Deberrys paid
$274,900 in cash for a third home on eight acres in the 9500 block of
Cooney Road, Mooresville. Clarence Deberry bragged to an undercover
officer about the cash he'd earned selling pot, according to
documents filed Thursday in Marion Superior Court. In March, Deberry
told the officer he had several customers who bought 25 to 30 pounds
of pot a week and that he supplied one costumer with 250 pounds of
the drug each week.

"We're always grateful for criminals who like to talk," Brizzi said.

Clarence Deberry has not filed an income tax return for 10 years,
according to court records.

More arrests may follow as investigators sort through evidence and
follow other leads, but police and prosecutors were confident the
Deberrys sat at the top of this supply chain. Clarence Deberry was
charged Thursday with dealing marijuana and other crimes in Marion,
Hancock and Morgan counties.

He is being held in the Morgan County Jail. Phoebe Deberry faces a
single felony drug charge in Marion County and is being held in the
Marion County Jail. Both have bonds set at $1 million. Morgan County
Prosecutor Steve Sonnega bemoaned the fact that the most serious
charge prosecutors can file, dealing marijuana, carries a maximum
penalty of eight years in prison. "That's the law in Indiana,"
Sonnega said. "We are basically filing the most serious charges we can."