Perris Official’s Drug Case Goes to Jury

A Riverside County jury on Thursday began deliberating the fate of a Perris councilwoman accused of turning her home into a “cocaine factory.”

Marita “Rita” Gaye Rogers, 55, was charged with conspiring with her 30-year-old son to make and sell crack cocaine, the cheap and highly addictive derivative of the drug, at a house she owns in Mead Valley.

The councilwoman, who during the trial admitted using cocaine briefly in the mid-1980s, said she had no knowledge of any drug activity in the house, which she said she used as an office and for storage. She lives in Perris, where she rents a room, said Rogers’ attorney, Virginia Blumenthal.

“Sometimes our kids do things that make us want to throttle them,” Blumenthal told jurors. “This is a nightmare, and it’s real.”

In closing statements Wednesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Tim Freer called Rogers’ Mead Valley house a “cocaine factory.” Two Riverside County sheriff’s investigators also testified that Rogers told them that she lived in the Mead Valley house, although she later denied making that statement, Freer said.

“She knew what was going on,” Freer told the jury. “How do you miss that you have cocaine splatter in your kitchen?”

If convicted, Rogers and her son, Joseph, face up to seven years in prison. The councilwoman also would be removed from office.

Authorities searched the Mead Valley home in August 2002 and found evidence of a lab where powder cocaine was converted into crack, said Ingrid Wyatt, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.

Central to the case is whether Rogers knew about and participated in the alleged drug operation in the Mead Valley home.

During the Superior Court trial in Riverside, Freer painted a picture of a councilwoman whose “personal life had a very grim side.” In addition to trace amounts of cocaine found in the kitchen and garage, drug paraphernalia and a 9-millimeter handgun were found in Rogers’ bedroom, Freer said.

“That straw didn’t come there to that nightstand by her bed,” Freer told jurors. “That straw was used for snorting rock cocaine.... It was in her room, in her home, next to her gun.”

Rogers’ attorney painted a starkly different portrait, calling several witnesses to testify to the councilwoman’s good character.

Blumenthal said that two years before Rogers ran for City Council in 1999, she was the victim of a home invasion robbery that traumatized her and prompted her to rent a home in Perris.

If she is found to live in Mead Valley, it could also disqualify her as a Perris council member.

Shortly after Rogers pleaded not guilty, a former councilman called for a formal investigation into her residency. Without proof that she lived outside the city, the council has no reason to investigate, said Perris Mayor Daryl Busch.

Joseph Rogers chose not to testify, but if he had, his attorney, Steven Harmon, said he would have cleared his mother of any responsibility by saying the items in the Mead Valley house were his.

Harmon said Joseph Rogers was addicted to drugs and that he needed help.

Still, Harmon said the prosecution “did not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.”