DEA, ASPEN AUTHORITIES AT STANDSTILL

ASPEN - The seemingly fragile relationship between the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA) and local-law enforcement departments was
addressed in a private meeting Wednesday in the office of Pitkin
County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo, with little headway being made.

A special agent with the DEA, along with DiSalvo and Aspen Police
Chief Richard Pryor, said they failed to find any common ground, other
than re-affirming that their long-standing drug-enforcement
philosophies are starkly opposed. In other words, the next time the
DEA penetrates Pitkin County to make an arrest, the Sheriff's Office
likely won't be called on to help because the federal agency doesn't
trust it.

"What it comes down to at this moment is that if the DEA comes to
Aspen, they would not notify the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, but
they might notify the Aspen Police Department," DiSalvo said. "That's
a bridge we're trying to build so in the future they will notify us so
we can help them make their operation successful by our community standards."

The issue boils down to the DEA's lack of trust in the two agencies,
namely the Sheriff's Office, said Jim Schrant, a DEA special agent out
of Grand Junction.

After last Thursday's arrest of six Aspen-area residents, five of whom
were snared in Pitkin County, DEA officials told local and state media
outlets that Aspen and Pitkin County officials weren't notified of the
drug sweep because of former Sheriff Bob Braudis and DiSalvo's "close
ties" to the targeted suspects. They also said the suspects were part
of an organization that funneled more than 500 pounds of cocaine from
Los Angeles to Aspen over the last 15 years.

The DEA made the local arrests with the aid of agents from the IRS,
the U.S. Marshal's Office, the FBI, Homeland Security and the Two
Rivers Drug Enforcement Team, which is made up of police departments
in Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, Rifle and Vail, along with the
Garfield County Sheriff's Office.

A sixth Aspen-area suspect was arrested in Dallas, while three Los
Angeles residents were detained in California. A fourth Los
Angeles-area resident remains a fugitive.

The DEA won't elaborate on the alleged closeness between Braudis and
DiSalvo and some of the suspects. But it's not backing off its
statement either.

Schrant noted that it's unusual that the DEA didn't contact local
authorities about the arrests until they were under way. Four of the
five suspects were taken into custody while they were at their
residences, early in the morning. The fifth was arrested at work. The
arrests were the result of a federal grand jury's nine-count
indictment handed down April 19; it was unsealed Friday.

"Oftentimes we work with other jurisdictions and we've actually
integrated them into our investigations because usually there's a
local narcotics task force that we're working with hand-in-hand from
the inception of the case," Schrant said. "Unfortunately, that does
not exist in the city of Aspen or Pitkin County."

He added: "Unfortunately, we were not in a position to make the
standard notification in this case other than trying to de-conflict it
and make it as safe as possible for the community and the agents
involved. And the reason we weren't able to do that fuller
notification was because of the relationship of Joe DiSalvo and
[former sheriff] Bob Braudis and several targets of this investigation
who were being arrested."

A DEA agent, however, was stationed outside the local communications
office as the arrests took place. The agent was there as a preventive
measure in case word of the arrests, which were made early in the
morning, leaked out.

DiSalvo would not comment directly about the DEA's characterization of
his ties to some of the suspects. He said he wants to move forward,
but he also did not appear confident that the DEA and his office or
the APD are close to reaching a consensus agreement about how to
handle local drug probes and arrests.

"There still seems to be a trust issue that I'm working on with the
DEA," he said. "Those trust issues still exist. I think those trust
issues around the acquaintances or people I know or see - I'm not as
close with them as they think I am."

Braudis, who is retired and lives in Aspen, said the DEA's claims
about DiSalvo have no merit.

"Despite what a member of the national police force, the DEA, said
about Joe DiSalvo, he is as pure as the driven snow. I'm proud of him
and the community should be, too," Braudis said.

The former sheriff of 24 years said the DEA has, "by inference,
tarnished" the image of DiSalvo, who was elected in November and
succeeded Braudis in January.

"I want to polish that sterling reputation of Joe DiSalvo," Braudis
said. "It's not about me."

Braudis and DiSalvo worked together for more than 15 years at the
Sheriff's Office. The two, like their predecessor, the late Dick
Keinast, have held the mutual philosophy that drug problems in Pitkin
County should be treated more as a medical issue than a criminal one,
an approach that is at odds with the DEA's.

DiSalvo said the DEA's trust issues are with the Sheriff's Office, not
the APD.

"And I don't think we've done anything to deserve that lack of trust,"
he said.

Said Pryor: "While the trust may not lie with the Sheriff's Office,
[the DEA does], to some degree, not trust the Police Department. And
that lack of trust is because of our close relationship with the
Sheriff's Office, and I think our community absolutely demands that
close relationship and that won't change because of this operation last week."

Pryor said the APD and Sheriff's Office have demonstrated that they
won't shy away from drug cases. However, when it comes to arrests like
the ones made last week, they are not equipped to handle the alleged
high-level dealers reeled in by the DEA. But, Pryor noted, both local
agencies could have provided some sort of back-up or aid. Safety
concerns, DiSalvo and Pryor said, were the primary reasons they felt
the DEA should have notified them before the apprehensions took place.

In its press release issued Friday, DEA Acting Special Agent in Charge
Kevin Merrill said the arrests "make Aspen and its surrounding
communities safer by taking significant amounts of drugs off the
street and putting violent criminals behind bars."

Federal authorities say the drug ring spanned from Los Angeles to
Aspen and was connected to cartels in Mexico.

When asked to provide specifics about the violence in Aspen, Schrant
said, "We don't know if they are [violent] or aren't. But I can tell
you with absolute certainty that the organization in Los Angeles is
extremely violent and that the kilos being consumed in Aspen - and the
kilos being trafficked by this organization - essentially sent money
to that organization committing this egregious violence."

As far as Aspen's role in the alleged network, Schrant said that "the
consumers funded it. The traffickers paid for it directly with Aspen
dollars in excess of at least 500 pounds of cocaine. This cocaine
appears to be consumed entirely in Aspen. This was the end of the ramp
in Aspen. So all that dope was coming here, and this cocaine being
bought and paid for in Aspen was going directly to this organization
in Los Angeles."

Schrant said it appears that the Aspen community, for the most part,
has a passive attitude toward cocaine use.

"Communities like Aspen are consuming these copious amounts of cocaine
and their dollars are fueling violence in places like Los Angeles,
places like Mexico," he said. "The analogy to use is you can take your
average, well-educated, highly-informed, local thinking Aspen resident
and they could very clearly articulate some of the issues surrounding
blood diamonds and blood tuna. And to us, this is blood cocaine, which
is these dollars are being spent at the customer level just like
they're fueling the diamond-related violence and exploitation, and
what's fueling the terrible violence in Mexico, and in this case, all
over the globe.

"I think there's something of a disconnect between this global
thinking on certain issues and a lack of global thinking on these drug
issues. This case demonstrates clearly that it is more direct than
anybody can imagine."