Fatal Drug Raid’s Big Fish Were in Reality Small Fry

By some estimates, more than 145 federal and local law enforcement officers were involved intimately in the sweeping narcotics investigation.

After all, government wiretaps made the suspected Ventura County drug dealers out to be especially dangerous and cunning. They talked tough about having “enough guns” to take care of snitches and police.

From their Mercedes Benzes, new Ford Mustangs and Cadillacs, the young men discussed moving pounds and kilos of methamphetamine through the county as Drug Enforcement Administration agents eavesdropped, authorities said. Two of the alleged deals went down in front of the Emily Richen Elementary School in Camarillo.

Local beat cops talked ominously of the county’s first well-organized street gang with a high level of sophistication in narcotics trafficking.

Expensive listening devices and a cadre of wired drug informants helped the two-year investigation build solid cases against the alleged dealers. After mapping out and practicing an elaborate raid, drug agents were ready to make their bust.

Fanning out throughout western Ventura County in the predawn hours of March 13, the agents simultaneously raided 16 homes and businesses and arrested 13 people.

It should have been a proud moment for law enforcement.

But something went terribly wrong with one of the raiding parties.

Oxnard Officer James Rex Jensen Jr. was accidentally shot and killed by his partner in an empty Oxnard condominium. News that a major drug ring had been broken was obscured by Jensen’s death.

That was a month ago. Now, Jensen is buried, the flags at the Oxnard Police Department are back at full staff and the drug agents are on different assignments.

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It is now the lawyers’ turn at the case. And as they navigate the Ventura County Hall of Justice and the federal courthouse in Los Angeles, a different view of the bust is emerging.

“These are really small-time guys,” said Marilyn Bednarski, a federal public defender. “But the cops screwed up. They made big mistakes and now they have to make this the biggest case of the century. They have to claim they have broken up the world’s largest drug ring.” Eight of the men arrested have been indicted in federal court on drug trafficking charges. Those indictments, along with the affidavits and search warrants filed in federal court, offer a glimpse of the case investigators have made against the men.

Of the five handed over to local prosecutors, only one has been charged with drug dealing. Charges were dropped against one suspect and never filed against another. Two others are being prosecuted only for alleged parole and probation violations.

While the suspects allegedly liked to throw around words like kilos and pounds, prosecutors charge that the men dealt almost exclusively in grams and ounces.

Bednarski, who represents one of the suspects, argues that none of the men arrested during the raid deserves to be prosecuted under the harsher federal system, where they face minimum 10-year sentences.

“It used to be that only guys dealing in kilos would get prosecuted on the federal level,” said Bednarski, who represents Joe Frank Abel. “Federal sentences are in place to bust the kingpins. These guys aren’t kingpins.” Wiretaps and surveillance notes allege that the men often acted the part of big-shot drug dealers, making dramatic gestures of patting down potential customers and issuing dire warnings about the fate of snitches.

But at the same time, they unwittingly made deals with government informants while under almost constant surveillance, authorities said. Deals were allegedly made in broad daylight, as drugs wrapped in paper towels and fast-food bags were passed through car windows on busy street corners, they said.

Even the lead federal prosecutor in the case concedes that the eight suspects in federal custody are not exactly cartel kingpins, or even a well-organized ring.

“They were more like individual contractors,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas Sleisenger said.

The biggest deals alleged in the indictments never topped more than a half-pound exchange of methamphetamine.

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But Sleisenger, along with Oxnard Police Chief Harold Hurtt, defend the decision to prosecute the eight in federal court.

“For [Ventura County], it is a significant bust,” Sleisenger said. “I get the feeling that the people in your community are happy to see these efforts.”

And the federal sentences, where criminals are required to serve 85% of their time before parole, will be justified if the men are ultimately convicted, Hurtt said.

“I think that any time you lose an officer, it is going to have a tremendous impact on the department and the community,” Hurtt said. “But I do believe the raid was a success because of the number of people that were arrested and charged with federal crimes. They are going to be off the streets for a long time.”

Nor does Hurtt or Sleisenger believe that Jensen’s death had any influence in the filing of the case.

In fact, Hurtt said local and federal officials decided ahead of time who would be charged federally and who would face state charges, which carry far less severe penalties.

But it is the harsh sentences that Bednarski objects to, because her 26-year-old client faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted of the two conspiracy and three drug distribution charges pending against him. He is alleged to have sold about a pound’s worth of methamphetamine over a two-month period last year. He faces double the sentence of his co-defendants because he has a cocaine possession conviction in Ventura County, Bednarski said.

The seven other defendants are charged with similar crimes and are alleged to have sold similar amounts of methamphetamine between 1994 and February of this year.

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Bednarski said most of the arrests were prompted by a single informant who hung out with most of the defendants. Bednarski claims the investigators were forced into the March 13 raid because the informant’s cover had been blown.

For the most part, the mere ounces of methamphetamine being exchanged in each deal were of poor quality, sometimes carrying a purity rating of 11%, court documents allege. The indictments and accompanying affidavits filed by investigating drug agents make no mention of gang activity.

Instead, the men are accused of working alone or in pairs--sometimes in competition with each other. For instance, court records allege that David Gradney--the owner of J&J; Auto Center, which was supposed to be the nerve center of the operation--made several methamphetamine deals from his business while his employees jockeyed for drug customers.

One of those employees, Jose Javier Zendejas, 30, allegedly left work at J&J; on Feb. 22 to sell an ounce of poor quality methamphetamine out of his Oxnard condominium to a government informant. This alleged sale prompted a federal justice to order the arrest of Zendejas and allow a search of his Manzanita Drive condominium.

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In the predawn hours of March 13, it was Jensen who led the raiding party into Zendejas’ home.

Today, the wooden front door of the condominium still bears boot marks where officers kicked it open. Yellow crime tape litters the front yard and a blanket covers the front window. No one answers the doorbell. Neighbors say they have not see any member of the Zendejas family since that day.

One neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said the gated neighborhood is relieved that Zendejas is facing federal time. She said she and her neighbors do not care if Zendejas and his co-defendants were kingpins or not.

“They were dangerous,” she said.

Hurtt said that is also his attitude. “We consider a bust of any thug standing on a street corner selling dope to be a significant bust,” he said. “I believe Officer Jensen would have been proud of the results.”