DRUG TRIAL FIRST OF ITS KIND

Prosecution Alleges Five Conspired To Manufacture Meth In Trailer Laboratory

It is a drug conspiracy case far different than those federal prosecutors
are accustomed to presenting.

There are no fancy cars with secret compartments to hide bricks of cocaine
or marijuana or drug suppliers laundering profits through shell
corporations and real estate ventures.

There are no middlemen, no couriers, no elaborate drug pipelines.

Instead, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Theodore found himself on Wednesday
showing jurors coffee filters, peroxide, baby food jars, hot plates,
plastic tubing and a variety of everyday household items as evidence of
this alleged conspiracy.

Inside a ramshackle mobile home and nearby storage shed, five poor, largely
unsophisticated Monroe Countians masterminded a venture to cook up and hawk
a powerfully addictive drug, Theodore alleged.

"You're heard the term smoking gun," Theodore told jurors. "Well, in this
case, we have a smoking meth lab."

With that, Theodore launched in U.S. District Court the region's first
trial of an alleged methamphetamine-making enterprise under federal drug
conspiracy laws.

Being tried before federal Judge Thomas Phillips, the case revolves around
a November 2002 search of Ernie Miller's dilapidated trailer in an area of
Monroe County so remote deputies were forced to trek through woods just to
get there undetected.

Theodore said the search not only yielded evidence of a meth lab but also
the discovery of a batch of the stimulant drug boiling on a hot plate.

Theodore and Assistant U.S. Attorney James Brooks are trying to prove a
conspiracy among five people who were either at the trailer when deputies
arrived or showed up while the search was under way.

One by one, defense attorneys introduced the five defendants not as
meth-making masterminds but as simple country folk whose lifestyles ranged
from plain to piteous.

There is Miller, described by prosecutors as the gun-toting leader of this
meth-making conspiracy. Attorney Roland Cowden told jurors Miller was
nothing more than a meth-using gunsmith who tinkered with broken weapons to
earn a few bucks but did little else to improve his lot in life.

Miller's wife, Mary Miller, is a legally blind grandmother "of 10,"
attorney Beth Ford said. She is also a woman beset with addictions to
alcohol and meth, drugs that kept her from worrying too much about her
failing eyesight, shaky marriage and economic woes, Ford said.

"Mary didn't care if Ernie was buying (meth) or making it," Ford said. "She
just wanted the meth."

Mary Miller's daughter, Samantha Moreno, is the third alleged conspirator
in the group. Prosecutors contend she used her employee discount at the
Wal-Mart where she worked to buy extraordinary quantities of the ordinary
stuff meth-cookers use to whip up the drug.

Attorney Kenneth Irvine said Moreno was a hard-working mother who had the
misfortune of visiting her drug-addled mother on the day before
Thanksgiving when deputies stormed inside.

"They were talking turkey," Irvine said.

Fourth on the list of alleged conspirators is Richard Ramsey, better known
throughout Monroe County as "Rambo," a nickname he earned for his fondness
for camouflage and his slightly antisocial nature and backwoods survival
skills, prosecutors said.

His attorney, James Varner, declined to make an opening statement
Wednesday, but Ramsey stood up ramrod straight when former Monroe County
Sheriff's Department narcotics chief Scott Wilson was asked to point to him
from the witness stand.

"He's been known as Rambo all his life," Wilson said.

Fifth in the group is Steven Bivens, who looks like a much older version of
TV mountain man Grizzly Adams. His attorney, Bruce Poston, told jurors
Bivens is a meth user who sends his wife off to work while he secretly
sells off their meager possessions to buy drugs.

"Steven Bivens was not part of any conspiracy," Poston said. "He's a drug
user, nothing more, nothing less."

The trial, expected to last at least three days, continues today.