Getting more than 100 drug dealers off the streets flooded the Johnson County criminal justice system this year.
A judge had to ask for more money from the county to help pay public defenders. An already-overcrowded jail was filled with even more inmates at the initial arrests and as low-level offenders began serving their sentences. Prosecutors worked meticulously to charge 120 people, with charges ranging from Level 2 felonies of dealing in methamphetamine to misdemeanors for dealing marijuana.
Thirteen months ago, on Nov. 8, 2018, the largest drug raid in state history unfolded in Johnson County.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryNow, more than 80 of the targeted dealers have been sentenced and are serving time; on average, about 4½ years in state prison. Some sentences also include home detention and work release. Some of them are expected to serve years of probation following their prison and jail sentences.
About a dozen still have open cases, with some opting for jury trials in the first months of 2020. Others have pleaded guilty and have their sentencing in the first quarter of 2020.
Six people were arrested on the warrants but failed to appear for scheduled court hearings. Three of the 120 warrants have not been served.
Another two cases were dismissed because the individuals died before the case made it through the court system.
One woman’s charges were dismissed.
County probation officers expect to be dealing with cases related to last November’s drug raid for at least five years.
Thirteen months later, county criminal justice workers believe the raid has deterred some drug activity in the county. But two subsequent raids in the spring and fall have netted warrants for dozens more suspects that further strained the system.
Now, they’re working to get the charged suspects off the streets and, in some cases, rehabilitated.
Preparing for the raid
Police from multiple agencies began investigating the cases months before the raid.
Residents called in tips of suspected drug activity that police investigated for months, and evidence was gathered that led police to the 120 people targeted in the raid.
Franklin police Sgt. Tony Povinelli spent weeks before the raid compiling packets with all of the evidence, known addresses and possible charges for those who were targeted.
The agencies met and picked a date that worked for all of them. Two dispatchers at the Johnson County Public Safety Communications, the 911 call center, joined and were giving information to each of the arresting teams during the actual drug raid.
In the weeks before the raid, Johnson County Prosecutor Joe Villanueva — then chief deputy prosecutor, former prosecutor Brad Cooper and two deputy prosecuting attorneys who specialize in drug crimes, Megan Smither and Drew Foster, began examining what charges each suspect would face.
They spent hours in a conference room in Franklin poring over police reports and photos from investigating officers’ efforts. They made notes, then sent those notes to paralegals in the prosecutor’s office to prepare the charging paperwork, Villanueva said.
Strong police work made the charging process faster, and most of the suggested charges offered by police officers needed little revision, he said.
Most of those charges went to Judge Peter Nugent in Johnson County Superior Court 2, who agreed to take more than 100 of the cases. Typically, cases are randomly assigned to a court, Nugent said.
Judge Lance Hamner and Judge Andrew Roesener took the rest of the cases. Those defendants likely had other pending cases in those courts, Nugent and Villanueva said.
Nugent suspected that one judge taking most of the cases would make the proceedings go faster with prosecuting attorneys and public defenders being able to stay in the same place instead of bouncing back and forth between courtrooms, trying to make multiple hearings.
“I just thought it would make it more efficient,” Nugent said.
Days before the raid, Nugent studied court records and issued the warrants. The most prolific drug raid in state history was on.
On a cold November day, police officers from multiple agencies in the county armed themselves with 120 warrants for people accused of selling methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine. The cases had been investigated by Franklin and Greenwood police and the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office for months.
A team of 100 arresting officers found people sleeping in cars. Fourteen people were found in one home on Yandes Street in Franklin, where more drugs and paraphernalia were also found. Police served a warrant at a hotel in Whiteland and arrested a Franklin man who was suspected of selling drugs out of a window in his home.
Seventy-two of the warrants were served by dusk on Nov. 8, 2018. Dozens of others were arrested in the days and months that followed the drug raid. Some who had warrants in the raid were already serving sentences for other crimes in Indiana prisons.
Johnson County Sheriff Duane Burgess was elected to the job two days before the drug raid. As jail commander during preparations, Burgess had to bring in more staff to handle the expected influx of inmates.
Jail staff set up a receiving line in the bay, where the additional eight to 10 people brought in to work that day worked to book everyone arrested into jail. Those jail employees ushered the inmates through medical exams and the body scanner. Jail officials worked to bring more beds into the jail in the days before the raid.
Meanwhile, officers were continuing to bring in other people who were arrested separate of the drug raid, Burgess said.
“As we did this roundup, business didn’t stop,” he said.
Moving cases through the system
Once warrants were issued and arrests were made, the court conducted initial hearings on the charges.
Most were done in groups. Jail officials transported inmates to the courthouse. Some had hearings over video conferences from the Johnson County jail
Nugent worked to find public defenders and began calling seasoned attorneys from Marion County who could handle high-level felonies. His offer: $15,000 for every 15 cases attorneys agreed to take.
Then, Nugent made the decision to schedule cases with hearings and sentencings within a month, versus looking for dates two and three months in the future to keep them moving through the system.
This scheduling tactic allowed attorneys to resolve cases more quickly. The closer the date of a hearing, the more all attorneys involved had to look at the case, which made for quicker outcomes for each of the cases, Nugent said.
“If it takes four or five touches to resolve, you are looking at 18 months for a case,” he said.
In the vast majority of cases related to the drug raid, defendants pleaded guilty.
Evidence was strong, which likely helped move the cases through the system more quickly, Villanueva said. Video evidence was part of nearly every warrant that had been issued. Defendants and their attorneys had access to the video, and in most cases, they could see the exact deal that led to the warrant for their arrest, Villanueva said.
Smither and Foster handled all the roundup cases for the prosecution and worked to get them through the system, Villanueva said.
The duo are used to having multiple drug cases, which helped with the workload some, Villanueva said.
“The sheer number of cases involved in that roundup made a lot of work,” he said. “Both of them have done an excellent job keeping those cases rolling.”
Investigators were also careful to make sure the evidence was solid before police compiled what they hoped would lead to an arrest warrant, Povinelli said.
The strain on probation
Once a defendant pleaded guilty, probation officers worked to do pre-sentencing interviews, said Angela Morris, director of Johnson County Adult Probation.
Four probation officers work out of Nugent’s court. Those four were assigned to the cases in the roundup, Morris said.
A field officer from the probation department assisted the day of the roundup, as some probation officers could know the latest address or where the suspect could be found because of their involvement in the system on other charges, Morris said.
Pre-investigation sentencing interviews conducted by probation officers and compiling the information takes about a half a day. Probation officers ask the defendant for their background information, including criminal history, Morris said.
Judges use the report before sentencing.
“We are still feeling the affects of that roundup,” she said.
About 2,000 people are on probation in Johnson County. While that number will continue to tick up as those who were sentenced in the roundup complete their jail or prison sentences, probation officers are used to the influx, Morris said.
“It’s just our job. We did our job; we didn’t do anything extra,” she said.
Through 2025, probation officers expect to still be guiding those arrested in 2018 through probation, where they will be required to have check-ins with their probation officers throughout the duration of their time on probation, Morris said.
The cost of the raid
The historic drug raid cost taxpayers hundreds thousands of dollars in the form of labor for county workers and in more tangible costs of incarcerating each person and in some cases, paying for their defense.
In early November, Nugent went to the Johnson County Council, the fiscal arm of the county, and asked for an additional $30,000. The judge needed more money than he had budgeted to keep paying mostly out-of-county public defenders to move those arrested during the raid more than a year ago through the court system.
People convicted of Level 6 crimes are held at the Johnson County jail due to a state law that requires low-level inmates serve their sentences in county jails.
Nine people who were charged and sentenced are serving their sentences at the county jail.
Costs can differ with each inmate depending on an inmate’s individual needs, such as required medical care, he said.
“There is a whole lot to housing an inmate,” Burgess said.
The inmates who are on the lowest end of the cost range would cost $20,075 to house for a year at the Johnson County jail.
Daily costs for housing an inmate at the Johnson County jail typically range between $55 and $90, Burgess said.
The state average for an adult inmate to be housed in a prison in Indiana is $52.61 per day, or about $19,202.65 per year, according to data from the Indiana Department of Corrections. The majority of sentences have been for felonies that are higher than a Level 6, meaning the person would be sent to an Indiana prison.
Continuing to do drug raids
Johnson County law enforcement agencies have conducted two more drug raids since last November.
A roundup in April netted warrants for 50 dealers, and Operation Hocus Pocus, conducted on Halloween, netted 22 arrests the day of the raid. Police were armed with 33 warrants.
Thirteen months after the historic raid that moved dealers from the streets to jail or prison, agencies have taken to doing smaller raids due to the strain a raid that size has put on the system, law enforcement officials said.
But overall, most involved agree that larger drug raids can be an effective tool in getting dealers off the streets and discouraging future dealing.
Arresting dealers helps to decrease overall crime numbers, officials have said.
Drug raids are a useful tool to send a message to dealers and to the community that their concerns about drugs in their neighborhoods are taken seriously. A large roundup of drug dealers is also a way to minimize risk to and increase safety for law enforcement officials as they can work in teams on a meticulous plan to execute the warrants, Povinelli said.
“We want the community to know that we are working these cases every single day,” he said.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”By the numbers” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
120: Warrants issued for the November 2018 drug raid
72: Warrants served that day
4: Number of charges dropped; 3 due to death of defendants
100: Officers who worked the drug raid
80: People who had been sentenced about a year after the raid
6: People who failed to appear in court on related charges
13: Months since the largest drub raid in state history
$55-$90: Daily cost of keeping one inmate in the Johnson County jail
8-10: Additional Johnson County jail staff brought in to work the raid
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