RP POLICE SEIZE $563,000 AND DRUGS FROM COUPLE

In the largest drug-related seizure in the city's history, Rohnert Park
police confiscated a three-foot tall backpack stuffed with $563,000 in cash
from a couple staying at a Redwood Drive motel.

Officers worked until early Friday cataloging three pounds of marijuana
packaged in small baggies, a .44-caliber handgun, 3 1/2 ounces of psilocybin
mushrooms, tally sheets apparently showing drug transactions, a quart jar of
a liquid believed to be LSD and reference books on LSD.

One suspect, Bruce Michael Young, 44, was wanted by U.S. marshals after
being indicted in Eugene, Ore., on charges that he was producing and
trafficking in LSD. He was held without bail at Sonoma County Jail.

The other suspect, Traci O'Rear, 23, of San Francisco, was taken into
custody on drug charges. Her bail was set at $750,000.

The backpack, a hiker's internal frame pack, was bulging with baggies full
of bills and labeled with the amount of currency enclosed, Sgt. Debi Guidet
said.

"Sure enough, when the baggie was labeled '10,' there was $10,000 in it,"
she said.

It took an automated bank machine more than an hour to count the bills, she
said.

Lt. Dave Frazer said officers discovered the drugs after responding to a
call Thursday morning of a possible domestic dispute with a woman screaming
in a motel room in the 5000 block of Redwood Drive.

As they approached the room, officers smelled a strong odor of marijuana,
Frazer said. O'Rear allegedly showed officers a small plastic bag of
marijuana and told them she had a prescription for it.

Not believing that the smell was coming from the plastic bag, Frazer said,
officers asked to search the rest of the room. He said they then found a box
containing several small plastic bags full of marijuana and the pistol in a
fanny pack.

Later in the day, officers obtained a search warrant for the rest of the
room and the suspects' cars, Frazer said, where they found the backpack and
other drugs.

Guidet said it was unclear what the two suspects were doing in Rohnert Park.
The couple had apparently been staying at the motel for about a week.

"We don't think they were dealing out of the hotel," she said.

"We wondered if they had just made a big sale or if they were coming here to
set something up," Guidet said. "Whatever it was, they weren't telling us."