14 Arrested in 2-Month Probe Into Drug Sales

Orange County Sheriff’s deputies culminated two months of investigation with the arrest of 14 people early Thursday on suspicion of drug sales, a department spokesman said.

Carrying felony arrest warrants issued by judges in four Orange County municipal courts, 27 deputies, in some cases accompanied by local police, made the arrests after dawn at residences in Laguna Niguel, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, Dana Point, Mission Viejo and Huntington Beach, according to sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Richard Olson.

The operation was designed to remove from the street “small-time” drug peddlers, as well as provide authorities with information that could lead to subsequent arrests, Olson said. Four additional suspects were not found and the warrants for their arrests will be entered into police computers to alert other agencies, he said.

None of the suspects resisted arrest, Olson said. Each was booked on one to four counts of narcotics sales and were being held on $10,000 bail at Orange County Jail, he said.

The arrests stemmed from undercover purchases by sheriff’s investigators in which the suspects allegedly sold between $90 and $400 worth of illegal drugs, Olson said.

Those arrested, and the counts on which they were booked, were: Russell William Sprague Sr., 33, of Laguna Niguel, for alleged cocaine sales totaling $300; Gregory James Lawson, 27, of San Juan Capistrano, $120 in cocaine sales; Terry Wayne Campbell, 36, of San Clemente, $100 in cocaine sales; Robert Thomas Amato, 20, of Dana Point, $200 in cocaine sales; Sharon Leigh Elliott, 21, of Mission Viejo, $300 in cocaine sales; Danny Goodman Jr., 24, of Huntington Beach, $300 in cocaine sales, and Claudia Jean Markell-Johnson, 38, of San Clemente, $330 in marijuana and $400 in cocaine sales.

Also arrested were: Paul Victor Biondi, 19, of Laguna Niguel, $90 in marijuana sales; Stephen Robert Babcock, 25, of Dana Point, $300 in cocaine sales; Gregory Glick, 22, of Laguna Niguel, $275 in sales of psilocybin, also known as “magic mushrooms”; Dianne Elizabeth Brumfield, 19, of Dana Point, $100 in cocaine sales; Steve Martin Romeo, 25, of Dana Point, $100 in cocaine sales; Robert Thomas Frey, 23, of San Juan Capistrano, possession of more than one ounce of marijuana for sale, and Dirk Russell Price, 18, of Laguna Niguel, $250 in cocaine sales.