26 Charged in Palmdale Heroin Sting

Authorities filed charges Monday against 26 people arrested in a sting operation in which deputies took over the Palmdale apartment of an alleged heroin dealer, took drug orders by telephone and arrested would-be buyers.

Two men who lived at the apartment--Armando Ramirez, 21, and Rudolfo Sanchez Lara, 27--were charged with conspiracy to sell heroin, an offense that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen L. Cooley said. They pleaded not guilty Monday and were being held on $10,000 bail each.

Twenty-two would-be buyers were charged with attempting to buy heroin, all of the cases involving $20 to $30 worth of the drug, purchased for personal use, deputies said. Two other suspects were charged with being under the influence of heroin.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant at the apartment on 10th Street West early last Thursday and arrested Ramirez and Lara. They recovered a gun, drug paraphernalia and records of drug sales, but no heroin, Cooley said.

Spanish-speaking undercover deputies then took orders by telephone from callers who requested deliveries of the drug at meeting places around the Antelope Valley. The callers bought empty balloons wrapped in tinfoil from undercover deputies and then were arrested, deputies said.

Cooley called the undercover effort “a classic reverse sting” designed to interrupt street drug sales. A reverse sting differs from other sting operations in that it targets buyers rather than sellers.

“The only way you attack narcotics problems is to attack at all levels--the user, the buyer and the seller,” Cooley said.