A former jailer for the Duplin County Sheriff's Office has been sentenced to two and a half years probation, fined and ordered to serve community service for attempting to provide an inmate at the Duplin jail with drugs. Kenneth Wayne Kentrolis, 22, of 290 Halls Pond Road, Rose Hill, pleaded guilty to felonious attempt to provide a controlled substance to an inmate after being taken into custody in January as a result of an undercover operation. Following the plea, Senior Resident Superior Court Judge W. Allen Cobb Jr. sentenced Kentrolis to a term of six to eight months in prison, however that sentence was suspended by the court. Kentrolis was placed under 30 months of supervised probation and ordered to pay a $600 fine, court costs and attorney's fees and complete 50 hours of community service. [continues 474 words]
What if convicted drug dealers and racketeers were forced to pay for necessary county expenses that would benefit all citizens, especially during tough economic times? Tight governmental budgets, compounded by a struggling economy, often call for county departments to do one of two things -- cut line items or find the cash to fund necessities. Through the federal Asset Forfeiture Program, the Sampson County Sheriff's Office has consistently tried to do the latter, simply by busting criminals. "We've been fortunate to get a lot (of money)," said Sampson County Sheriff Jimmy Thornton. "I don't mean hundreds of thousands of dollars every couple months, but we've been very fortunate." [continues 932 words]
At this time last year, Sheriff Jimmy Thornton's frustration with the raging methamphetamine problem in Sampson County had long since boiled over. The sheriff and his drug agents with the Special Investigation Division (SID) were pulling their hair out, losing sleep with every meth lab they found in the county -- and there were plenty. By the end of April 2008, there had already been 20 meth labs discovered in a year that was just a third of the way in. [continues 1058 words]
In an effort to reduce the epidemic of prescription drug abuse being felt in Sampson and across the country, emergency physicians at Sampson Regional Medical Center are no longer refilling narcotic pain and sedative medications. Instead of dispensing narcotic pills, they are instead doling out referrals to primary care physicians so patients may receive the proper treatment. Sampson Regional is another in the growing number of emergency departments taking such measures to reduce the increasing overuse of narcotic and sedative medications used to treat chronic pain. [continues 766 words]
Even prior to this week's announcement of federal indictments on eight local individuals for methamphetamine trafficking, many may have already known the meth trade in Sampson had been dealt a significant blow. And the fight is not over. At the end of February, less than two months into 2008, Sampson County Sheriff's authorities were dealing with their 12th meth lab of the year. There have been just 12 more in the 10 months since. "I think we were having an epidemic in Sampson County," said U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding, who received a call from Sampson County Sheriff Jimmy Thornton in late February. Thornton said the problem had gotten out of hand. Recalling a promise made at a conference in 2006 by Holding to provide assistance in combating the drug problem, the sheriff took him up on the offer. [continues 425 words]
Eight Area Residents Federally Indicted on Methamphetamine Charges, First Ever in State Eight local residents are facing federal prison sentences, ranging from minimum sentences of 10 years to life in prison, following a lengthy, historical investigation by federal, state and local authorities into the manufacture of methamphetamine locally. Producing the first-ever federal meth convictions in the state, "Operation Juiced Out" has taken a substantial bite out of the meth activity in the county and sent a strong message to others, Sampson County Sheriff Jimmy Thornton said upon the announcement of the federal indictments Monday. [continues 901 words]
The number of meth labs found in Sampson County, through August, has doubled over the entire amount discovered and dismantled in 2007 -- and the county's sheriff said a meth lab has not been found locally since June. According to statistics disseminated by the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation, there have been 20 confirmed clandestine lab responses in Sampson as of the end of August. There were 10 in Sampson all of last year. The SBI has recorded 131 confirmed meth labs in the entire state, approximately 40 percent of which have been in either Sampson or Harnett counties. Harnett leads the state with 30 meth labs in 2008. [continues 759 words]
Sheriff's authorities have seized more than $700,000 worth of marijuana after discovering hundreds of stalks, some measuring up to 7 feet in height, in a field in the Plain View community. The commander of the sheriff's Special Investigation Division, assigned to handle felony narcotics cases, said SID agents worked with the office's newly-implemented gang unit in making the seizure Wednesday afternoon. He said the marijuana was found off a dirt path on the 8000 block of Timothy Road, well off of N.C. 55. [continues 342 words]
Local sheriff's authorities have seized more than half a million dollars worth of marijuana and cocaine in 200 drug investigations and two undercover campaigns this year, as well as made a whopping 53 methamphetamine-related responses netting nine labs and numerous meth dump sites. There have been 226 cases opened by the Sampson County Sheriff's Special Investigative Division in 2008, and nearly 160 of them - about 70 percent - have been closed by arrests, according to a 2008 activity report compiled by the division's commander and provided to The Independent. [continues 511 words]
CLINTON - A local prison guard now finds herself behind bars after being arrested after attempting to smuggle drugs into the N.C. Department of Corrections facility early Thursday morning, according to information from Clinton police authorities. Kathy Marie Turner, 41, of 189 Harmony Acres Lane, Clinton, was charged Thursday with possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana, possession of a controlled substance on jail premises and maintaining a vehicle for the storage of a controlled substance. An employee with the Department of Corrections for the last two years, Turner was arrested after nearly an ounce of marijuana was seized by Clinton police and state correctional officers outside the facility on North Boulevard Thursday. [continues 273 words]
Sampson County Sheriff's investigators are getting reports of methamphetamine labs across the county an average of once every three days this year. More than a third of those calls are yielding meth labs or components from the labs -- and that number will look minuscule as the year progresses, the sheriff said. "It's apparent we have a serious problem," Sheriff Jimmy Thornton said this past week as he looked at numbers compiled by his Special Investigations Division, assigned to respond to calls of meth labs and other drug-related incidents. [continues 832 words]
During 2005, agents with the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation responded to 328 clandestine methamphetamine labs in the state, and, through increased public awareness and more stringent laws regulating the sale of a key ingredient in the drug's production, two years later that statewide number has been cut in half. However, while the number of meth labs SBI authorities have responded to has dipped significantly overall in the last year, including in Sampson, this county and those surrounding it have remained a hot bed for such clandestine drug activity. [continues 677 words]
Going into a brand new school year, Sampson County educators said the implementation of a voluntary drug program, that can be utilized through the anonymous distribution of home-testing kits, has been successful in its aim even though just a fraction of the kits were picked up from county schools last year. Becky Jackson, director of middle grades education for Sampson County Schools, who helped to spearhead the voluntary drug-testing program called SASSY (Substance Abuse Screening Saves Youth), said she wished for more participation in the service, which she said can continue to be funded this school year. [continues 649 words]
CLINTON - Residents around Sampson County are becoming increasingly aware of just how destructive methamphetamine has become in their own communities and have engaged in a renewed effort toward solutions to combat the significantly strong hold of meth addiction. "It was sobering," said the Rev. Cory Oliver, pastor at Epworth United Methodist Church. He said that it was most shocking to hear just how much time it takes for a meth user to recover from addiction, taking between 12 to 18 months after usage is stopped before neurotransmitters in the brain damaged by meth can heal. [continues 964 words]
CLINTON -- When Dr. Mary Holley's brother Jim was just 22 years old, he would start using a drug that would take hold of him and his brain, causing Jim to go through constant fits of paranoia, psychosis and schizophrenia that would result in him taking his own life a mere two years later. That drug was methamphetamine, a substance that is infecting communities across the country, destroying the lives of users and their families in its wake. Now a renowned expert in the field of meth, Holley made a visit to Sampson County this week to share her story and discuss the affects of the drugs in an effort to bring about awareness by everyone, and offer solutions to the problem. Meth addicts suffer from a brain disease and no longer function by themselves, with meth controlling them and eating away at their brain, Holley said. [continues 721 words]
KENANSVILLE -- Nearly $78,000 in cash was seized as a result of two routine traffic stops made by members of the Duplin Interstate Criminal Enforcement team recently, according to information released by sheriff's authorities Tuesday. The sheriff said approximately $300,000 has been seized in the last year alone through the work of county deputies. In the most recent of the two stops, the larger of the two, a vehicle being driven by a Forsyth County teenager, was found to contain $75,000. The stop was made by Lee Graham, deputy with the DICE team, shortly before 9 a.m. April 16. [continues 743 words]
WALLACE -- A Wallace Police Department officer has been arrested on several serious felony drug and robbery charges following a months-long investigation into allegations of his involvement in the armed robbery of an area grocery store, and conspiring to commit drug sales on two separate occasions. On Tuesday, the State Bureau of Investigation arrested Warsaw police Officer David Brown Jr., 31, of 209 Sloan St., Wallace. Brown has been charged with conspiracy to sell and deliver a Schedule VI controlled substance, conspiracy to sell and deliver a Schedule II controlled substance, robbery with a dangerous weapon and conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon. He has been placed in the Duplin County jail under a $250,000 secured bond, according to warrants. [continues 202 words]
Sampson County officials are hoping that a televised documentary will act to further shed light on addiction and its dire effects on not only those addicted, but the community around them, with an emphasis on treating that addiction as what it is -- a brain disease. Several distinguished documentary filmmakers explored the current state of addiction in America in nine segments, interweaving the latest thinking on treatment and recovery by leading experts on drug and alcohol addiction, picking the minds of accomplished experts in psychology and psychiatry. [continues 661 words]
Meth is a problem, one which law enforcement continues to deal and addicts continue to battle. It affects not only those who choose to do the drug, but their families, landlords, neighbors and many throughout the community. The first step in the battle, as many law enforcement and educational officials will attest, has always been awareness -- that of the drug itself, and the dire and far-reaching effects the drug can have, whether physical, psychological and economical. That importance of such awareness will be expressed thoroughly at an upcoming seminar, to be held this Tuesday, Nov. 28, at Sampson Community College, as well as act as the focal point for National Meth Awareness Day two days later, on Nov. 30. [continues 680 words]
Nearly $50,000 in cash was seized by Sampson County Sheriff's authorities during a traffic stop on Interstate 40 Thursday, according to a press release from the Sheriff's Office. The money has been turned over to federal authorities and charges may be forthcoming against the driver, authorities said. According to information from sheriff's authorities, the stop was made at about 2:30 p.m. on a black Cadillac traveling on I-40. Members of the sheriff's Highway Enforcement Awareness Team conducted the investigative stop and a K-9 unit responded and the vehicle received a positive alert for the presence of narcotics, reports state. [continues 233 words]
ALBERTSON - After discovering a large outdoor marijuana growing operation in northern Duplin County last week, deputies with the sheriff's offices in Duplin and Wayne counties staked out the location around the clock in an attempt to apprehend suspects returning to tend to the plants. Although no arrests have been made, authorities seized 11,500 marijuana plants, which would reportedly have a street value of more than $18 million fully grown. According to Duplin County Sheriff Blake Wallace, a large number of the plants were destroyed, but others were kept with the purpose of displaying a sample of the growing operation to the media at an announcement of the bust Thursday. [continues 493 words]
Officers with the Sampson County Sheriff's Office's Highway Enforcement Awareness Team seized $10,000 in cash during a routine vehicle stop on N.C. 55 in the northern part of the county on Thursday. Sampson County Sheriff's authorities seized $10,000 in cash during a routine traffic stop Thursday, conducted near the Sampson/Johnston County line. The man was pulled over for an equipment violation by officers with the Sheriff's Highway Enforcement Awareness Team and the officers discovered the money. [continues 184 words]
In 2005, Sampson County Sheriff's authorities seized nearly $9 million in drugs, seven times the value of total drugs seized by the office in 2004. And that $9 million in narcotics seized last year has already more than doubled just weeks into 2006 with the seizure of $20 million in cocaine in the southern part of the county at the end of January. Sampson County Sheriff Jimmy Thornton said that the last year's numbers reflect a hard-working Sheriff's Office and a community that has alerted law enforcement to activity that may be suspicious. In most cases, the concerns of citizens are valid - and the seizures that come with responses to calls of suspicious activity and subsequent investigations by sheriff's authorities speak for themselves. [continues 475 words]
Jim Godwin, a recovering methamphetamine addict, speaks about his experiences to a crowd gathered for the methamphetamine summit held in Clinton earlier this week. CLINTON -- The fight against the highly-addictive drug methamphetamine is a tough battle, but one that can be won -- and Jim Godwin is a clear example of that. A meth abuser, it took Godwin losing his job and nearly his family to find his way back, but he did. Godwin said that he loved his job and, when he started to do meth, went gradually from a dependable worker who enjoyed coming to work to a man that was frequently late to his job, if he showed up at all. [continues 927 words]
INGOLD -- Approximately $20 million worth of cocaine was seized and two Sampson County men arrested Monday by Sampson County Sheriff's authorities, working in conjunction with sheriff's officers in three other counties as well as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Sampson Sheriff Jimmy Thornton called the seizure the largest he has ever encountered and a "crippling blow" to drug traffickers in the state. As a result of the seizure, Alejandro Moreno-Salgado, 27, of 56 Melvin Road, Harrells, and Isais Mareno-Ochea, 41, of 2517 Register Sutton Road, Rose Hill, were each charged with trafficking cocaine by possession. [continues 267 words]
Just as in Sampson, the presence of methamphetamine in Duplin County is becoming a growing trend, the results of which can act to tear communities apart and destroy families. Those who question the harsh realities of the drug's use and manufacture need only to visit the Duplin County jail. There were four confirmed methamphetamine labs discovered in Duplin County during 2005, but all of the components of a lab were found in several other instances, the sheriff said. "We had other locations not deemed as labs, but all the components were there," he said. [continues 541 words]
In an ever-increasing effort to make the public aware of the adverse effects the use of methamphetamine brings and the inherent dangers associated with the drug, several local groups in Sampson County have joined together in organizing an educational and informational summit to be held in January. The summit, sponsored by the Clinton-Sampson Chamber of Commerce, Sampson County Methamphetamine Task Force and Star Telephone, will include several expert speakers who will talk about the various facets of meth use and the vast social, environmental and economic impact it has on individuals, their families and the community as a whole. [continues 751 words]
The number of confirmed methamphetamine labs found in Sampson County during 2005 was nearly double the amount discovered in the county in the previous three years combined, according to Sampson County Sheriff's authorities. The 11 confirmed labs in Sampson was tied for seventh most in the state and was the highest of any county in North Carolina east of Watauga County, statistics collected by the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation show. "In one year we almost doubled what we had in three years," said Sampson County Sheriff Jimmy Thornton. He said that there were two confirmed meth labs found each year from 2002 to 2004. [continues 714 words]
As much as the use of methamphetamine has grown -- authorities in Sampson County said that arrests on meth-related charges this year have increased by more than half over those in 2004 -- marijuana remains just as much of a problem. Considered by many a drug that leads its users to stronger drugs, marijuana is prevalent in Sampson County, as can be seen from arrests and drug seizures made by the Sampson County Sheriff's Office's Special Investigation Division. In 2005, nearly 100 people have been brought up on marijuana charges and more than $5 million worth of the drug has been seized and destroyed by SID agents. [continues 874 words]
Drugs know no boundaries, not only in regards to geography, but to gender or age of those who use and sell narcotics. The drug problem becomes more prevalent as time passes and local law enforcement officials say that drug operations are becoming more sophisticated, with increased resources being required to impede drug supply lines. The problem is in local communities and counties, such as Sampson County, and everywhere else, said Sampson County Sheriff Jimmy Thornton. Red Ribbon Week, observed the last week of October, is nationally recognized and celebrated, helping to preserve Special Agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena's memory and the ribbon has become a symbol of support for the DEA's efforts to reduce demand for drugs through prevention and education programs. [continues 496 words]
WALLACE - Nearly $10 million in marijuana was seized by Duplin County authorities in what officials are calling the area's largest pot seizure in years - possibly ever. More than 4,000 pounds of the drug was recovered early Sunday by sheriff's authorities, who worked with several other agencies for 36 hours to remove marijuana stalks from a heavily wooded area near Wallace. According to Duplin County Sheriff Blake Wallace, the marijuana was found on a 15- to 20-acre plot of land about half a mile off Old Camp Road, close to the Sampson County line. The bust was the result of an ongoing investigation and a tip from a citizen who called the sheriff's office late Saturday evening. [continues 527 words]
CLINTON - Pharmacists have been asked to shoulder additional responsibilities with the passing of a new state law putting some cold and allergy medications behind the counter, an effort by legislators to cut down on the rising number of methamphetamine labs in the state. The law's full effect has not yet been seen at some pharmacies in Clinton. The law places over-the-counter cold tablets containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, the critical ingredient needed to make the illegal drug, behind pharmacy counters. Customers will need to show picture identification and sign a log is they wish to purchase such pills, the law states. [continues 650 words]
Live for yourself ... or die for the drug. The choice is simple. Members of the Sampson County Methamphetamine Task Force hope that, with the help of its new Web site, visitors will elect to take a look, learn and, in the process, choose life. It is that exact option - life or death due to methamphetamine - that is posed to visitors of the site, www.methdeath.org, a name used to drive the importance and seriousness of the issue home. A haunting image in the form of a look up from inside a grave accompanies the message. In the site, the public is given statistics and facts on meth, such as the affects of the drug to the individual, environment and surrounding community, signs of meth use, dangers of the drug and how to recognize meth labs. [continues 1220 words]
CLINTON - Sampson County health officials say that increased substance abuse counseling and continued education for the public on the growing use, and manufacture of, methamphetamine in the county is greatly needed. The health officials, speaking as representatives from teams established to review selected cases of child abuse and neglect, gave recommendations to the Sampson County Board of Commissioners recently on how the growing problem of meth is being combatted and what else needs to be done. Representatives from the Community Child Protection Team and Child Fatality Prevention Team gave their annual reports, covering 2004, to the county board at the commissioners' meeting last week. [continues 541 words]
