By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Court documents in the case of Donato Valle Vega shed light on why the 40-something Centralia car lot owner met with federal agents in Borst Park two years ago and then took them to his Harrison Avenue business and showed them pounds of drugs he had hidden in the attic.
Valle Vega was working as an informant with the FBI, assisting with an investigation of members of a Mexican drug trafficking cartel, according to his defense attorney Robert Leen.
After talking with an FBI agent and another from the DEA in early September 2010, Valle Vega admitted he had drugs, told them how much, offered to take them to the business and told them they could search both his car lot and his stash house, Assistant United States Attorneys Matthew Thomas and Darwin Roberts wrote in their trial brief.
The agents retrieved approximately four kilos of cocaine and 33 pounds of methamphetamine from Emmanuel Auto Sales that day, according to court documents. Two weeks later Centralia police assisted federal law enforcement officers with the arrest.
Valle Vega was convicted late last month of one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and a second similar count related to methamphetamine, in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.
He faces a minimum of 10 years in federal prison when he is sentenced, according to Assistant United States Attorney Thomas.
Both Thomas and Leen declined to talk about the case further until after sentencing.
Leen in his pretrial memo brief however wrote that his client admitted he had drugs the agents didn’t know about, but said he believed if he didn’t appear to go along with the suppliers’ plan it would mean death for him and his family, both in Centralia and in Mexico.
Valle Vega indicated he felt trapped because the men associated with the drugs were in Centralia but that as soon as they left, he gave information about the drugs, Leen wrote.
Leen, who is based in Everett, noted his client may have made some errors in judgement regarding his contacts with the drugs, but said it was out of fear.
The story begins, according to documents in the court file, on Sept. 1, 2010, the day before Valle Vega met with the agents in the Centralia park.
According to the documents: Law enforcement agents observed what they believed were narcotic being loaded into a BMW with Utah license plates at Emmanuel Auto Sales at the 1400 block of Harrison Avenue in Centralia.
At least three federal agents met with Valle Vega the following day and took the drugs. Valle Vega told them he’d received the drugs in July and had already distributed one and half kilograms of cocaine in August.
He told them they’d been provided to him by Salome Flores Apodaca, and the source was Apodaca’s brother, Augustine Flores Apodaca. They’d been sent to him concealed in a vehicle that had been brought to his auto sales business on a car hauler from Arizona.
That same day agents and Valle Vega were looking through his attic, Utah State troopers stopped the BMW in Brigham City and subsequently discovered about a pound of methamphetamine tucked into its gas tank.
The agents met with Valle Vega in Kelso a few days later. On Sept 17, they arrested him.
Federal prosecutors set out to prove the Centralia man possessed pounds of drugs that no drug trafficking organization would have provided to a person without the expectation they would be further distributed.
Neither of the trial briefs offer information about who or where Valle Vega’s customers were.
The trial lasted about four days and the jury returned a verdict of guilty as charged.
A forfeiture hearing regarding the property on Harrison Avenue is scheduled for Jan. 4. Sentencing is set for Jan. 25.
Thomas said the minimum term is 10 years in prison.
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For background, read “Centralia auto business arrest followed discovery of almost 10 pounds of cocaine” from Wednesday September 29, 2010, here
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
Not bad reporting on the part of the reporter… a bad decision on the part of the drug dealer. He’s the ones that did it.
And now the Cartels are reading this blog and planning his and his familys executions. Bad choice reporting this one Ms Decker.