Legendary boxer Muhammad Ali didn't back down from a fight and also stood up for underdogs. So it's fitting that his center will house this year's annual event focused on battling drug addiction. Recovery from heroin and other drug addiction can take years and many stints in rehab, but it is possible - the central message of hope is the theme of Recovery Rally 2016, a free event from noon-2:30 p.m., Saturday at the Muhammad Ali Center, 144 N. 6th St. [continues 149 words]
Dr. James Patrick Murphy, a nationally-recognized pain medicine specialist, balances guidelines meant to lessen the risks of addiction with a patient's need for pain relief, examines Marta D. Thomas of Old Louisville. Thomas is a volunteer at Kosair Pediatric Convalescent Center and receives radiofrequency lesioning (which melts the covers off nerves so they don't transmit pain for 4-6 months.) 27 October 2016(Photo: David R. Lutman/Special to The C) Cattle farmer Marquis Smith is in pain, but he doesn't get sick leave. [continues 1207 words]
Ismael Gonzalez-Gonzalez was supposed to be deported nine years ago, but Cuba wouldn't take him. Instead, he wound up in Louisville and, police say, emerged as a local boss directing the flow of drugs in the Louisville area and beyond for a Mexican cartel. It's unclear how Gonzalez, a convicted felon who was arrested in a surprise drug raid last summer, first entered the United States before he ended up in Louisville, where he settled into a house in Jeffersontown. Many details about his case remain hidden in sealed federal court records. [continues 769 words]
Memphis drug-ring accomplice testifies of violence that drove him to flee with his family A former member of Craig Petties' drug organization told jurors Tuesday about a series of ghoulish events that drove him from Memphis and ultimately into the federal witness protection program. Dana Bradley, testifying in the federal trial of two alleged hit men, said the disturbing errands he was asked to carry out on behalf of the drug ring included digging a grave, carting around a heavily armed death squad from Mexico and burning up a murder victim's car. [continues 647 words]
Trial offers view of Memphis' drug lords Case of 2 cousins -- accused of being hit men in Petties' violent gang -- to resume Monday Killers callously hunting down their Memphis targets. A Mexico death squad armed with assault rifles and silencers hidden in Cordova. A 6-year-old boy caught up in a shootout over a multi-million-dollar drug heist. This portrait of Memphis' secret seedy side is continuing to take shape each day in the ongoing federal trial of two alleged hit men from the city's most notorious drug organization. [continues 871 words]
Drug Informant Exposed Cover-Up Whoever said crime doesn't pay hasn't met Alexis White. While others shuffle off to work to early morning desk jobs, White has slept late and made a living buying drugs throughout the city as a police informant. That work, which netted White between $20,000 and $30,000 a year, came to an abrupt halt in November when an elderly Atlanta woman was fatally shot by police during a botched drug bust near White's neighborhood. Narcotics officers asked White, 45, to lie to help them with a cover-up, but he called authorities and exposed renegade cops. Three officers were indicted this week in the case, and two have pleaded guilty to killing 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston. [continues 453 words]
Officers Regularly Fail to Report What Searches Found In March, an Atlanta Police Department narcotics officer, later involved in the fatal shooting of an elderly woman, got a "no-knock" search warrant for a house on Evans Drive after determining that a man named "Grill" was selling cocaine there. How Officer Jason Smith came to that conclusion, how he persuaded the judge to give his unit the exceptional warrant, and what police found are hard to pin down, more than eight months later. That's because State Court records contain only a judge's order allowing the officers to bust in and search the place -- not the supporting documents that are supposed to accompany the order. [continues 809 words]
Prescription With No Exam Alleged A Gwinnett doctor with a troubled past remains jailed without bond on felony drug charges. Family practitioner David Joseph Ellis, 50, was arrested Saturday for allegedly dispensing a narcotic to an undercover agent without examining the agent, said Rick Allen, deputy director of the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency. Ellis, who has an office on Hurricane Shoals Road in Lawrenceville, is charged with felony dispensing a drug in violation of the state controlled substance act, according to arrest records. [continues 223 words]
Drug charges against a Gwinnett doctor with a troubled past were forwarded to Gwinnett Superior Court on Friday. Family practioner David Joseph Ellis, 50, is charged with distribution of cocaine and dispensing hydrocodone, a controlled substance. Both are felony charges that together could send Ellis to prison for up to 40 years if he is convicted, Gwinnett Assistant District Attorney Tom Davis said. Ellis, who has practiced in Lawrenceville and most recently in Snellville, remains behind bars at the Gwinnett Detention Center in Lawrenceville. On Friday, he gave up his right to a preliminary hearing, which would have required investigators to convince a judge there was enough evidence to detain him. [continues 172 words]
Waffle House waitress Kathy Anderson won't be able to see her two sets of twins on Christmas. The Lawrenceville mother lost her house and custody of her 9-year-old daughters and 15-year-old sons. Her family and her home weren't as important as getting high on crack cocaine, she said. "I was hooked on drugs real bad," said Anderson, 40, while sitting on a cell bunk applying mascara before the start of her waitress shift. "Crack ruled my life." [continues 441 words]
Metro Police are not out of control and he's firmly in charge of his department, Metro Police Chief Emmett Turner said in an interview yesterday. Turner's comments came the same week officers were disciplined for crashing into a state trooper's cruiser while intoxicated, patronizing an adult swingers club and lending money to a Titans player charged with a domestic assault. A week earlier, the department suspended a detective selling beer without a permit. Two officers were fired and six were suspended. [continues 635 words]
