By DENISE RAYMO
WAVERLY — The owners of the Hill Top Stop are among eight people accused of trafficking $20 million in pot and cocaine with ties to Russian organized crime in Ohio and an area murder.
Convenience-store owners Harold J. Fraser, 43, and Sabrina Fraser, 37, of 65 Church St., Dickinson were charged, along with William F. Votra, 30, of Hopkinton, with first-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.
Mr. Fraser and Votra are also charged with second-degree conspiracy, while Randy Langdon, 29, of St. Regis Falls, was arrested for third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.
TWO-YEAR PROBE
Their arrests end what police said was a two-year intra-state and international drug-smuggling operation that allegedly saw Konstantine B. Sorin, 24, and Ashley R. Schmid, 21, both of Beachwood, Ohio, use rental cars every two weeks to tote cocaine into New York, then return with 100 pounds of Canadian-grown hydroponic pot that had been smuggled across the border in both Franklin and St. Lawrence counties.
Each was charged with first-degree attempted possession of marijuana, as was Mark A. Veverka, 34, of Willoughby, Ohio.
Jovane R. Rosa, 26, of Troy was also charged with first-degree criminal possession of marijuana.
All are expected to face federal charges as the investigation continues.
The smugglers allegedly had plastic bags of cocaine casually stored in a household-junk drawer and used hollowed-out computer consoles to stash neat bundles of cash, enlarged photos of which were shown at a news conference Wednesday.
SHOT DOWN
Prosecutors say the network is also connected to the May 12, 2008, shooting death of Daniel Simonds, who was gunned down on his front porch in the Town of Stockholm, which is in St. Lawrence County. Simonds died several hours later.
Franklin County District Attorney Derek Champagne said Simonds was smuggling pot regularly to Ohio and that it went to the same buyers.
Four people are in federal custody related to that murder: two are incarcerated in Canada, and another is still at large, said Nicole Duve, district attorney in St. Lawrence County.
Ohio is one of 31 states where drug smuggling has been directly linked to Franklin and St. Lawrence counties, Champagne said.
NUMEROUS TRIPS
The first transaction in this investigation occurred Sept. 14, 2007, and the last on June 14, 2009, and included 45 separate trips made between the two states, using Avis rental cars and coordinating cellular-telephone calls, investigators say.
Champagne said at least 18 of the loads, which had a street value of $500,000 each, came directly from Franklin County in one year, with the entire smuggling operation having a value of $18 million to $27 million.
SATURDAY STOP
The DA said Schmid and Sorin showed up in St. Regis Falls on Saturday nights, where the pot was allegedly vacuum-sealed in bags by the Frasers.
The Ohio couple would leave the next day, taking with them two or three hockey-equipment duffel bags stuffed with the pot, Champagne said.
By renting the cars in New York, where the vehicles carry New York plates, the smugglers from Ohio blended in with all other drivers, prosecutors said.
ORGANIZED CRIME
The case started in late 2007, when authorities with the cities of Beachwood and Reminderville began investigating Russian organized crime in the Cleveland area and learned groups were receiving large amounts of pot from Simonds.
After his murder, Ohio authorities continued to track the crime network and provided updates to both district attorneys and to the Plattsburgh field office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
Champagne said that within a short time, the new delivery system was established. Earlier this year, investigators from Ohio came to the North Country to help the authorities identify the dealers and formulate a plan to dismantle the smuggling network.
STRIKE FORCE
Meanwhile, Franklin and St. Lawrence counties were waiting to learn if they would be designated by the federal government as High-Intensity Drug-Trafficking Areas, with new access to information-sharing techniques between federal, state and local agencies.
In anticipation of that occurring, the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Major Traffickers Strike Force, established to ease the transition for the counties, led the investigation between the Ohio and New York authorities.
The surveillance revealed the Frasers’ operation allegedly went beyond Ohio and supplied high-grade pot to other parts of New York and the Northeast, Champagne said.
SEIZURES
Four search warrants executed on June 15 in Waverly, Dickinson and Hopkinton and 12 executed in homes, businesses and a safe-deposit box in Ohio led to the eight arrests.
Seized during the investigation were more than $1.3 million in cash, 14 vehicles, two utility trailers, three all-terrain vehicles, a snowmobile and a boat.
Champagne said he will ask federal authorities to include the Hill Top Shop and the Frasers’ home on the seizure list, as well.
A pound of cocaine and 200 pounds of pot were also seized.
The DA said there were several times during the investigation that the arrests could have been made, “but we allowed it to proceed to get the kind of seizures we’ve got.”
Duve said her office did not know the Simonds murder and Ohio cases were linked until the shared information developed.
“It took time to unravel the threads of this investigation. We were unaware of the Ohio investigation until it led to Franklin County.”
Up until then, the murder was being investigated as an isolated drug deal gone bad.
E-mail Denise A. Raymo at:
draymo@pressrepublican.com
