McCreary County, Winter 2000

A STRANGER WALKS IN

The Chop Shop

The little garage, sitting at the edge of some woods, didn't look like
much. It had two bay doors, cinder-block walls and a plain metal roof.
Scattered around the grass outside were vehicles in various states of
undoing -- half a truck here, a bumper there.

The garage was operated by Steve Gibson, who was well known for running a
chop shop where parts were stripped off stolen vehicles.

It was a spot where a man could drop by in the afternoon and plop down on
an old bucket seat ripped out of a pickup. Those who did took their time
sipping beer and talking about fishing and hunting.

David Perkins lived next door and was a frequent visitor.

"He'd be down there late at night," said Perkins' then-wife, Daisy.

A group of drug dealers used the place as a makeshift office. "They were
waiting around for phone calls and customers," Gibson said.

During the day, cars would pull up in the driveway outside, waiting for a
dealer to walk up, lean in and swap prescription drugs for cash, said Jerry
Strunk.

Strunk was a mechanic at Gibson's garage in 2000. At the same time, he was
involved with Perkins' OxyContin sales.

That year, in the midst of the small-time dealing and gossip, a stranger
walked into the garage one day.

David Valentin didn't exactly blend in at first.

He'd moved from Chicago to Kentucky when his then-wife decided she wanted
to be with family near Pine Knot. Before then, Valentin said, he had been a
member of the Gaylords, a north Chicago street gang.

He was charged three times there with dealing drugs. Two cocaine-related
cases were dismissed; but in 1990, he pleaded guilty to two counts of
delivering a controlled substance.

Police records list Valentin at 5-foot-11 and anywhere from 235 to 260 pounds.

One of his nicknames is "Tattoo Dave," and it's not hard to see why:
Tattoos cover Valentin's arms, and when he lifts his shirt, there are
plenty more on his gut. Another nickname, listed on a court file in
Chicago, is "maniac."

His eyebrow, chin and nose bridge are pierced with small metal studs.
Valentin speaks in a low growl. He says things like "I've got bullet holes
and stab wounds all over me -- I had it rough" with very little inflection.

Though still married, Valentin began dating Jerry Strunk's daughter after
running into her at a New Year's Eve Party at a mobile home in McCreary
County, and he was invited to the garage a short while later.

He found it to his liking.

"I would go around the garage and stand around and bull---- with them guys
during the day," Valentin said. " ... I'd run to the store for them, and
get them sodas."

The first time they met, Perkins thought Valentin had a big mouth.

"He was talking about ... he run with a gang up there in Chicago and all
this stuff," Perkins said. "Just trying to make himself look big."

But Perkins trusted Strunk and so, against his own instincts, he accepted
the newcomer.

Valentin soon began delivering more than sodas. For one of Perkins'
customers alone, he delivered 500 20-milligram OxyContin pills a load,
according to court records.

The two men didn't stop there.

Perkins says it was Valentin and another man who "came around here and
talked me into getting involved" with a different kind of drug. Valentin
maintains that it was Perkins who approached him.

"They asked me to call up and see if I could get a price, and I called up a
few people, old connections," Valentin said.

And that's how a new supply of cocaine poured in from Chicago to Pine Knot.

"We was trying to, you know, make money, trying to live a little better is
basically what it was," Perkins said. "Everybody's called to mess up once
in their life."

The first run was sometime in early 2000.

They met a dealer in Chicago and bought about 10 ounces of cocaine for
$12,000, Perkins said.

Valentin disagreed, saying that Perkins bought 2 kilograms -- more than
seven times as much.

From that first deal, they set up a plan: Perkins placed the orders,
Valentin made the calls, and a group of drivers set out for Chicago.

The first kilogram packages of cocaine, bundled to avoid detection by drug
dogs, were covered with bubble wrap, Perkins said. Underneath that, there
was a thin layer of rubber-like material greased down with a perfumed oil.

And on top of the rubber coating, Perkins said, there was a photocopy of a
$100 bill, the supplier's trademark.

Steve Gibson, who ran the chop shop, said he remembered that one day
Perkins came by his place with 3 kilograms of cocaine. Perkins wasn't
offering to sell it, Gibson said. He just wanted Gibson to see the sort of
quantity that he was dealing with.

"He was proud of it," Gibson said.

Perkins said Gibson made up that story.

Perkins is elusive about the amount of cocaine that he personally bought
and sold during his career. He acknowledges that more than 60 kilograms
were brought in by the drug ring, but said that he touched only a fraction
of that amount. At one point Perkins said he handled 10 kilograms. He later
changed his story, saying it was 8 kilograms, and then 5.

Most of the cocaine, Perkins said, was going to Valentin anyway.

Valentin said Perkins was lying.

"That organization was running before I was over there," said Valentin, who
couldn't say exactly how much cocaine was sold, offering only that it was
"hundreds of kilos."

Perkins' role in the operation, Valentin said, was clear. He was "the man."