Pubdate: Wed, 09 Jan 2002
Source: Parkersburg News, The (WV)
Copyright: 2002, The Parkersburg News
Contact:  http://www.newsandsentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1648
Author: Jesse Mancini

DELEGATE: PARKERSBURG NEEDS FBI OFFICE

A Wood County delegate is asking President Bush for a full-time Federal 
Bureau of Investigation field office in Parkersburg to better fight 
drug-dealing criminals.

Methamphetamine dealers like Wood County for its location and proximity to 
other states and because of West Virginia's lax laws against the 
manufacture and sale of the dangerous and addictive drug, Del. John Ellem, 
R-Wood, said. "Because we are a border county, we are attractive to 
methamphetamine dealers, who can manufacture their product in West Virginia 
and then market it to customers in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio," Ellem 
said. "Regrettably, the meth dealers find our state particularly appealing 
because we have the least punitive methamphetamine laws of the three 
states. I have proposed legislation to correct this problem at the state 
level."

The FBI has an unstaffed office in the federal building in Parkersburg, 
said Joe Ciccarelli, supervising senior resident agent in Charleston for 
the Southern District of West Virginia. West Virginia is part of the 
Pittsburgh regional field office.

Manpower from time to time is shifted from office to office or new offices 
- - called resident agencies - are opened depending on where they are needed, 
he said. An agent was once assigned to the Parkersburg office.

The FBI has seven offices in West Virginia, of which six are staffed. These 
are in Wheeling, Clarksburg and Martinsburg in the Northern District and 
Charleston, Huntington and Beckley in the Southern District.

Ellem has written a letter of request to Bush. Petitions signed by hundreds 
of area residents are being sent to the president, too, Ellem said.

Methamphetamine labs are dangerous facilities because of the toxic and 
volatile chemicals used in the production of the drug.

More than 50 methamphetamine busts have occurred in the area in the last 
several years, most of those being in Wood County. The most recent two were 
in the last two weeks in Parkersburg.

The arrests are the result of the Parkersburg-Wood County Narcotics Task 
Force, which works closely with the FBI and other federal enforcement 
agencies, Wood County Prosecutor Ginny Conley said.

"The cooperation with the federal agencies is outstanding," she said.

The task force has been nationally recognized by the U.S. Attorney's Office 
for its accomplishments, Conley said. Task force agents here train other 
agents.

Federal drug laws against the manufacture and delivery of methamphetamine 
are stiffer than West Virginia's.

In the 2001 session of the Legislature, Ellem introduced a bill stiffening 
the penalties for methamphetamine possession, production and delivery. It 
reached the House Judiciary Committee, where it was not put on the agenda.

The anti-methamphetamine bill was one of many overshadowed by the video 
poker legislation during the last term of the Legislature, Ellem said. The 
bill made its way to the House Judiciary Committee, where it was not placed 
on the committee's agenda.

Ellem said he will again introduce the bill this session.

"I am optimistic we can see progress on this bill, but in the meantime, we 
need the help of the FBI to help our law enforcement officers prosecute our 
drug laws so that our communities can be free of dangerous and illicit drug 
activity," he said.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth