Source: Roanoke Times (VA)
Contact:  http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/index.html
Author: MICHAEL HEMPHILL
Pubdate: 12 Dec 1998

METHAMPHETAMINE CAME FROM CALIFORNIA, RECORDS SAY

Floyd woman, stepson charged in Tidewater drug operation

DEA AGENTS TRACED PHONE CALLS FROM A SAN DIEGO HOTEL TO AN apartment in
Floyd County.

A mother and her stepson with ties to the Pagan motorcycle gang were
arrested this week in Floyd County on charges they supplied a drug ring
that distributed huge amounts of methamphetamine to the Portsmouth area.

Following their arrests Wednesday night in the Check area of the county,
Frankie Barbara Delise and her stepson, Christopher Michael Delise, were
brought Friday morning before a federal judge in oanoke. The pair will be
returned to the Eastern District of Virginia to stand trial on one count of
possessing with the intent to distribute and one count of distributing more
than a kilogram of methamphetamine.

According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, Chris Delise, 25,
made regular flights to California beginning in 1995 to pick up the
methamphetamine. He would return with it taped to his body. Back in
Portsmouth, his stepmother would sell the drug, also known as crank, to a
network of street dealers, while his father, Richard Delise, used his Pagan
associates to provide protection for the drug trafficking, the complaint
states.

Frankie Delise regularly had to threaten the lives of some of her dealers
who she suspected were skimming some of her supply, the complaint states.

The investigation of the Delises began in August 1997, when the DEA
searched the Portsmouth home of William Clark Weeber and found
methamphetamine and several firearms, as well as a safe hidden in the floor
of a bedroom. DEA agents say they later learned Weeber's main suppliers
were Frankie and Chris Delise, who used his bedroom safe to store their
product.

Soon after Weeber's arrest, the Delises disappeared, but Chris Delise kept
making trips to California, according to the complaint.

In May, DEA agent had tracked Chris Delise to a otel in San Diego. Phone
records from his room showed he made calls to a Floyd County number four
times. Agents were able to trace that number to the apartment in Floyd
County where he and his stepmother were living.

Wednesday night, masked and armed DEA agents kicked down the door of their
Kings Store Road apartment and arrested the pair.

"They hadn't had anything I would consider a drug house," said their
landlord, Randye Schwartz. "Never had a lot of visitors, real quiet, good
tenants, very respectful, paid rent on time."

If Schwartz was upset with anyone, it was the DEA agents who destroyed her
apartment and left without telling her. Her apartment was left "open to the
elements" for a day and a night before she learned what had happened.

"I wouldn't expect them to call us in advance and give us notice," she
bemoaned, "but maybe within an hour afterward." 
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Checked-by: Mike Gogulski