Pubdate: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) Copyright: 2003 Lexington Herald-Leader Contact: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240 Author: Tom Lasseter, David Stephenson Series Index: Article 1:: Article 2: Article 3: Article 4: Article 5: Article 6: Article 7: Article 8: Article 9: Article 11: Article 12: Article 13: Article 14: Article 15: Article 16: Article 17: Shelby County, August 2002 'A NORMAL TRAFFIC STOP' The Highway It was close to 2:40 a.m., and Shelby County Sheriff's Deputy Charles Fudold was four hours into his shift. Having made his patrol rounds, Fudold was farther out in the county, running radar on Interstate 64. A black Pontiac Firebird whooshed by the pastures and cornfields, lighting up at 82 mph in a 65 zone. Fudold flicked on his lights and pulled the Firebird over about a mile down the road. "It was just a normal traffic stop," he said. The driver, Angela Miller, had a suspended license. Fudold asked whether either of her two passengers had a valid license. They did not. The man in the back seat was fidgeting with a bag -- a purse, maybe -- and it was a little too obvious that he was trying to hide something, Fudold said. Fudold told them all to get out of the car. Miller seemed nervous, and so did the two men. One of them, the guy who was in the back seat, asked to sit down on the road because he felt as if he were going to vomit. Fudold glanced into the car. There wasn't any luggage, a strange thing for three people who said they were driving all the way up to Chicago. "Everybody was nervous and nothing was adding up," Fudold said. His eyes moved to the back seat, where he could now make out a purse sitting on the floorboard. Five or six very large bundles of cash were sticking out of the top. When he looked inside the purse, Fudold noticed some food stamps. He had a pretty good idea how someone with food stamps would get what was obviously many thousands of dollars. "How many people drive around with that much cash at two o'clock in the morning?" Fudold said. He asked Miller what the money, wrapped with rubber bands, was for and she said she was going to visit her sick grandmother. Fudold called for backup and read Miller her rights. He asked again why she had the cash. This time she said it was to buy a couple of trucks in Chicago. Fudold arrested Miller for driving on a suspended license and waited until he got to the county jail to count the money; he wanted cameras recording him before he started peeling off the bills. It added up to $35,382. Later, Miller said that she'd found the cash in a heating duct in her home. When she was questioned once more, according to court documents, Miller came clean. The money, she said, belonged to a man in McCreary County. His name was David Perkins. Perkins had lent her the car and given her the cash to deliver to another man in Chicago. She was to be paid $1,000 for making the trip. It was hard to believe that a dealer would've entrusted that much cash to a driver with no license, Fudold said. Miller and company hadn't always had such a prominent role in Perkins' drug business. They took on more responsibility only after Valentin got arrested, Perkins said. That would turn out to be a bad move. In early September, state police and Drug Enforcement Administration officials reviewed the serial numbers of the $35,382 seized from Miller. They found that $1,200 of it matched bills used in a McCreary County drug sting in August. It was the deal that Perkins and Grundy arranged in the vegetable garden. The rumors had been right -- Grundy was a snitch. When Grundy bought cocaine from Perkins' delivery man, he was wearing on his belt what looked like a small black pager, but it was really a recording device. After the deal, he met with police at a church down the road, while other officers saw the runner returning to Perkins' house. Perkins subsequently said the money seized from the Firebird was meant to buy about 11/2 kilograms of cocaine in Chicago. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman