Wearing only a towel, Anchorage resident Shelby Ward signed for a package Friday he apparently thought contained more than 2 kilograms of cocaine. What Ward didn’t know, according to a charging document filed today in federal court, was that the United Parcel Service driver at the door was in fact a federal agent delivering fake cocaine.
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The day before, a California sheriff’s deputy and her drug dog discovered the cocaine at a UPS facility in Redlands, Calif. The dog tipped her off to an Alaska-bound package holding two bricks of cocaine, about two-and-a-half kilos, according to the court document. The deputy sent the package to a Drug Enforcement Administration agent in Anchorage, who replaced the cocaine with a powdery imitation and rigged the package with an electronic monitoring device.
DEA Special Agent Nathanial Clementson wrote in the charging document that he “assumed the role of a UPS delivery driver” and brought the package to its intended address: an apartment on East 75th Avenue. Ward, 40, was wearing only a towel and accepted the delivery just before noon Friday, Clementson wrote.
About 30 minutes later, the various law enforcement officers staked out in the area saw Leigh Ann Massengill, 37, circle the area in her Chevrolet SUV. Massengill had made deposits in January and February — a total of $75,200 — to the bank account of a California resident where the package originated, according to the charging document.
Massengill drove around the apartment for 25 minutes, “looking around intently” and talking on her cell phone.
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“In my experience, this behavior was consistent with counter-surveillance activities,” Agent Clementson wrote.
Massengill apparently left. A short while later, the electronic monitor alerted agents that the package had been opened, the court papers say.
Clementson could see someone looking at the officers from a second-floor window, and he went to knock on the door, announcing that he was a police officer, he wrote. There was no answer, and another law enforcement officer forced open the door.
Inside, they found Ward unclothed. He looked like he had just been taking a shower, the agent wrote. Both Ward and a female child found in the apartment were taken into custody. The faint odor of burning marijuana wafted through the residence, the charges say.
Some of the imitation cocaine was detected on Ward’s hands, Clementson wrote. The package was sitting outside the back door, but it’s unclear what became of the rest of the fake cocaine.
Later, the agents searched a residence on Karluk Street shared by Ward and Massengill. They found an Apple iPad with an open browser window on a website tracking the same UPS package intercepted in California, the court papers say. Massengill arrived at the Karluk Street residence as the search was wrapping up, the agent wrote, and she, too, was arrested.
Ward and Massengill are charged in federal court with conspiring to possess and distribute more than 500 grams or more of cocaine
