Pubdate: Thu, 05 Apr 2001
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2001 Albuquerque Journal
Contact:  http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Guillermo Contreras, Journal Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)

RAID EXPOSED HIDDEN HABIT

Janetta Gorsich, 41, is a Red River real estate agent, married, with a 
17-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter, and she belongs to a family 
that owns a popular restaurant in Red River.

Yet until earlier this year, she said Wednesday in court, she had hidden a 
secret: She was buying quarter-ounces of cocaine for $250 a pop. A judge 
told her Wednesday she shouldn't have been in the cocaine business.

Gorsich pleaded guilty in Albuquerque to one felony count of using the 
telephone to facilitate a drug-trafficking offense. She was the third 
defendant to plead guilty to federal charges stemming from a federal and 
state drug crackdown called "Operation Avalanche," which targeted more than 
50 people in Taos County. Half of the defendants are being prosecuted in 
federal court.

Patrick H. Cortez of Taos County pleaded guilty March 23 to conspiracy and 
Vincent Bailon of Questa pleaded guilty March 29 to using the telephone to 
facilitate a drug-trafficking offense.

Under a plea deal with prosecutors, Gorsich and Bailon could each be 
sentenced to a maximum of four years in prison. Cortez faces a maximum of 
20 years.

At her plea hearing Wednesday, Gorsich told Senior U.S. District Judge John 
Edwards Conway that she did not like jail - where she spent 21/2 days after 
her arrest.

"It was horrifying," she said. "I will never do that (cocaine) again. My 
children had no idea I was doing it. It (the experience) was an awakening 
for me."

Gorsich got snagged in a February raid that involved 200 law-enforcement 
officers who took out three suspected cocaine-trafficking rings in Taos 
County after a yearlong investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon Kimball told Conway that had the case gone 
to trial, the government would have proven that Gorsich was buying 
quarter-ounces of cocaine for $250 from Anthony Lloyd Vigil, the lead 
defendant in the case, who is charged with distributing "large quantities" 
of cocaine.

On Nov. 2, a phone call Gorsich made to Vigil to buy cocaine was 
intercepted by authorities, according to Kimball. Vigil's case is pending.

"Although it was for her personal use - much of it was for her personal use 
- - she did distribute some of it," Kimball said of the cocaine.

Conway asked Gorsich about her case and whether she distributed the drug.

"Yeah, I did," Gorsich said. "I gave some to friends."

Conway also asked about her personal life, and Gorsich said she runs a real 
estate office and that her family owns Texas Red's restaurant in Red River.

Conway asked for her age, and when she replied, "41," the judge told her, 
"You're too old to be in the cocaine business."

Kimball told Conway several other defendants are negotiating with 
prosecutors about possible plea deals.
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