INVESTIGATION POINTS TO MEXICO-MADISON DRUG RING

Couple and former deputy accused of running a smuggling operation

Old Village Road in the Town of Genesee is roughly 2,000 miles from
the border, but state and federal investigators see it as the starting
point for a Mexico to Madison marijuana smuggling operation that could
send a young couple and a sheriff's deputy-turned-drug-trafficker to
prison for as long as 40 years.

This, authorities say, is how it worked:

Every five weeks or so, Heather Lane and Jason Carr left their home on
Old Village Road, got into a rental car with their young child and pit
bull terrier and headed for the border. They'd stop in Nogales, Ariz.,
check into a motel and hook up with a man who smuggled marijuana
across the border through a tunnel.

With as much as 1,000 pounds packed in their rental car, Carr and Lane
would drive back to Wisconsin and head for a large, fenced compound
southeast of Madison where former Dane County sheriff's Deputy Robert
Lowery bred and raised pit bulls, authorities say. After unloading
their cargo, Carr and Lane would return to Old Village Road and await
their next trip for Lowery.

But the suspected smuggling operation wasn't seamless, and federal
investigators discreetly monitored it for a little under four months
before swooping in and arresting the three this month. Authorities
seized 15 pounds of marijuana, 25 ounces of cocaine, $47,000 and 52
dogs, according to a state Department of Justice spokesman.

On Thursday, a grand jury in Madison indicted Carr, 25, Lane, 26, and
Lowery, 57, on charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana,
distribution of marijuana and unlawful transport of firearms.
Meanwhile, Lowery's compound has become the focus of a civil
forfeiture proceeding in federal court because of its suspected ties
to drug trafficking.

Further hearings on the case have yet to be scheduled.

Court records indicate that investigators put together their case
against the three with a mix of information from four informants, cell
phone transmission data and GPS tracking devices.

First tip came in February

Federal court documents give the following account:

The first informant with details about the smuggling operation
contacted investigators Feb. 22, reporting that Carr and Lane were
about to travel to Arizona to get up to 1,000 pounds of marijuana for
an unknown man who at the time was believed to be a pit bull breeder
living in the Milwaukee-Waukesha area. Carr and Lane, according to the
informant, made a similar trip for the unknown man in January,
returning with 200 pounds of marijuana.

Under an arrangement that had been in place for some time, the unknown
figure paid for the rental car and all the other expenses associated
with the trips, set up the contact with the Mexican marijuana supplier
and gave Carr and Lane a portion of the pot and several thousand
dollars as payment, documents allege.

In March, a second informant reported that Carr was making
twice-weekly, multiple-pound marijuana deliveries to a Kenosha drug
trafficker, prompting investigators to begin secretly watching the
comings and goings of Carr and Lane from the home they rented on Old
Village Road.

On March 8, investigators learned the identity of the third figure in
the operation when they followed Carr and Lane to Lowery's compound.

Lowery was a familiar figure to narcotics agents.

He'd been a deputy from 1979 to 1981 and left the department amid
allegations that he was supplying information about undercover
narcotics investigations to the targets of the probes, advising them
of impending search warrants, according to a criminal complaint.

Throughout the 1980s, Lowery's name surfaced several times in
connection with the illegal drug trade, threats against the lives of
informants working with police, and pit bull fighting. In 1982, he was
convicted of possession of a controlled substance with intent to
deliver in Dane County Circuit Court, and in 1991, he was convicted in
federal court in Florida of conspiracy to deliver cocaine.

When Carr and Lane left Lowery's compound that day, investigators
followed them to Dubuque, Iowa, and ended their surveillance as the
rental car continued south. The agents subsequently contacted an
informant who was able to reach Carr by cell phone in Missouri.

Investigators then got a federal court order to keep tabs on Carr in
the following days by tracking his cell phone calls when they bounced
off towers in Arizona, New Mexico and Iowa. The cell phone tracking
told them when Carr and Lane returned to Lowery's compound the
afternoon of March 11 and when they returned to Old Village Road later
that night.

GPS unit slipped under car

On April 24, an informant told investigators that Carr and Lane were
about to embark on another trip, and the following afternoon, agents
watching the Town of Genesee home saw Lane pull up in a rented 2006
Toyota Camry. Late that night, as Carr and Lane slept, investigators
slipped under the Camry and attached a GPS tracking unit.

Five days later, agents were watching Lowery's compound when the Camry
pulled up. An hour later, it left and returned to the home on Old
Village Road, and during the night, agents slipped back under the car
and removed the GPS tracking unit, which later showed them that the
Camry had gone to Arizona.

On May 1, agents sent an informant to buy marijuana from Carr. While
there, Carr told the informant, who was wearing a hidden transmitter,
that he had just brought back 170 pounds of marijuana.

During the return trip, Carr said, a sheriff's deputy in Oklahoma
stopped the Camry for speeding and asked the young couple for consent
to search their car. They refused, so the deputy summoned a colleague
with a drug-detecting dog, but the animal was unable to run its usual
routine because it was distracted by the couple's pit bull. A second
K-9 team also was unable to detect the marijuana hidden in the trunk.

A few days later, Carr told the same story to another informant,
adding that he was about to get a truck with a lockable bed. On May 5,
investigators sent to watch the Genesee home found a silver 2006 Dodge
Ram pickup in the driveway.

On June 13, investigators watching Lowery's compound arrested Carr
shortly after he left it, having spent two hours there. Inside his
truck, they found 10 pounds of marijuana.

When Carr and Lane were questioned later that day at the Waukesha
County Sheriff's Department, they admitted smuggling marijuana from
Mexico for Lowery, who surrendered to authorities a few days later in
Florida, documents say.