Mccreary County, October 2001

DOMESTIC TROUBLE; IMPORTED COCAINE

Guns And Wild Times

David Valentin walked to the door to see who was there at 3:49 in the morning.

There was a McCreary County sheriff's deputy and a state trooper. They'd
been called to investigate a fight at an apartment Valentin shared on
Pigskin Road.

Valentin looked at the cops. The cops looked at Valentin.

He had a 9mm pistol holstered on each hip.

The sheriff's deputy would later note that he "appeared excited and was
visibly sweating." Valentin explained that "he and David Perkins were just
having a little argument."

There was no arrest because the computer system for running criminal
background checks was down. The police could not verify that Valentin was,
in fact, a felon in possession of two firearms.

When later asked about the incident, Perkins laughed and said there was no
argument or fight -- just some cocaine being passed around.

It was the fall of 2001, and Perkins' world was spinning out of control.

"It was like he had a double life," said his then-wife, Daisy Perkins. "He
was hiding a lot from me."

Toward the end of their marriage, Daisy Perkins said, "I think that he got
in over his head. I guess he thought he was a big shot."

The couple separated in December 2001. David Perkins was snorting cocaine
daily.

When federal authorities later inquired about the amount of cocaine he was
using at the time, Perkins responded, a "hell of a lot."

Meanwhile, teams of drivers continued the drug runs: I-75 to Lexington;
then I-64 west to Louisville; and I-65 north to Chicago. At times, Perkins
went along.

"When I went up there, I'd go straight in, straight out," Perkins said.

He'd call from a pay phone on the road to make sure everything was ready,
pull up to the house, sit and talk for a while, and then be out of Chicago
as fast as he could.

"They're the type of people you wouldn't want to come to your house and
visit," Perkins said of the Chicago dealers.

Asked where he kept the cocaine on the return trips, Perkins said "right in
the front seat, so we could do it coming back."

David and Daisy Perkins divorced in February 2002.

Two days after the Perkinses' divorce was granted, an officer from the
London police department walked through the door of 1207 West Fifth Street.
David Valentin's wife, Tammy, had a pair of handcuffs on her left wrist.

She told police Valentin put them on her and tried to drag her to the door.

Valentin had hit his wife in the face and beat her with a belt, according
to an account given to the police. When the pair's young daughter asked
Valentin to let her mother out of the handcuffs, he told her to mind her
own business before allegedly hitting her on the head, the police report said.

At some point during the ruckus, Tammy Valentin twice shot a .44-caliber
pistol inside the house, according to police reports.

David Valentin was eventually sentenced to 360 days, with all but 90
conditionally discharged. Tammy Valentin, who declined comment, was given
seven days, with credit for time served.

The U.S. attorney's office in London decided to open a case against
Valentin after the incident. Valentin was indicted on charges of being a
felon with seven handguns. Under the indictment, he faced up to 70 years in
prison.

As part of the indictment, he was charged with having a gun during a 2001
domestic dispute with Tammy Valentin in which she said "he stuck a lit
[cigarette] to my forehead and continued to argue until police officers
arrived," according to court documents.

With Valentin in trouble, Perkins was going to have to make other
arrangements to keep the cocaine coming.