Randall D. Mauel faces a judge while his brother Ryan G. Mauel, wearing green, waits his turn during a bail hearing.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The two brothers arrested when more than a dozen law enforcement officers swarmed a Jackson Highway house south of Chehalis and seized pounds of drugs will get their chances to make their pleas in court tomorrow.
Randall D. Mauel, 42, and Ryan G. Mauel, 37, appeared yesterday afternoon briefly in front of a judge who set their bail at $25,000 and $10,000 respectively.
The reason for the difference is the younger man has no criminal convictions in his background and the older brother has several prior offenses, according to prosecutors.
Lewis County Superior Court Judge James Lawler was told Randall Mauel has a “pretty decent job” and an address in Pierce County. Ryan Mauel earns about $500 a month doing odd jobs and lives at his parents’ property where the two were arrested on Monday, defense attorney Bob Schroeter told the judge.
Officers found freezer bags containing about $200,000 worth of methamphetamine crystals and two baggies filled with heroin, according to authorities.
The approximately 146 grams of heroin was described by a sheriff’s office spokesperson as powdered and brown but in charging documents as a tar-like substance, with a street value estimated at $11,600.
The raid that took place about 12:30 p.m. on Monday at the 2500 block of Jackson Highway came out of fast-moving investigation by the Thurston County Narcotics Task Force, according to task force commander Capt. Dave Johnson. Officers following up on a tip obtained a search warrant just that morning, Johnson said today.
Johnson said he couldn’t reveal too much, but did know the drugs arrived locally from California within the previous 24 hours.
The Lewis County Regional Crime Task Force and the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team assisted, contributing about half of the 14 law enforcement officers that conducted the arrests, according to Sgt. Rob Snaza.
Snaza is the SWAT leader and supervisor of the local task force.
According to charging documents and Snaza, the SWAT members entered the home through a door inside the carport and confronted the older brother, and then the younger brother who walked out a bedroom.
Two other individuals present were arrested but not charged. Snaza said the subjects were taken into custody without incident and no one else was at the home at the time.
Under a coffee table in the family room, inside a black duffel bag, Thurston detectives discovered the drugs and four digital scales along with packaging materials, according to the charging documents.
One of the bags held seven smaller portions of suspected meth in smaller zip lock-style baggies, according to the documents.
Charging documents state that when “Randy” Mauel was searched, a detective located $602 cash, more than $400 of it in $20 bills. The documents indicate a school bus stopped across the street, suggestive of so-called sentencing enhancements which can be implemented when drug crimes occur near schools or school bus stops.
Also arrested at the scene were Jonathan R. Stajduhar, 34, of Chehalis and Tesa M. Hanks, 34, of Centralia, but they were released from jail without charges pending further investigation, according to the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office.
The Mauel brothers were each charged with two counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, one for each type of drug. The offense carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The methamphetamine totaled 2.7 pounds, the sheriff’s office said.
They were also charged with a class C felony, unlawful use of a building for drug purposes.
Schroeter indicated in court yesterday the home and property belongs to the men’s parents, the younger brother has lived there all his life and has taken care of his mom and dad for years.
It’s unclear where the older brother resides.
Charging documents say that Ryan Mauel told a detective the two have lived there about a month, and he pointed out his bedroom and said his older brother usually slept on the couch in the family room. Schroeter confirmed Ryan Mauel lives there, but said he took issue with the information that Randall Mauel does.
The sheriff’s office describes them both as Chehalis residents.
Their arraignments are scheduled for tomorrow morning in Lewis County Superior Court.
The younger Mauel is represented by local attorney Jacob Clark, the older Mauel by David Arcuri.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
Pri-Clinton, I hear ya, agree completely, Sara you make a very accurate statement, Amen is a hypocrite, and Scott is obviously a pig, and Sharon Decker does need to install a like button on her comments pages, and Who really gives a Fuck abut the spelling, if you are not smart enough to decipher a few miss spelled, or abbreviated words then you most definitely are not bright enough to leave a comment or opinion about laws, besides idiot know it all’s spell check is on your computer therefore not needed on a specific page. Carry On Sheeples.
Amen: you are the biggest hypocrite I’ve heard in a while! You say “the worst offenders are the ones calling others posters idiots”? Then you are calling people “uneducated rubes”?? I’m educated with a Political Science degree, and to my knowledge an “uneducated rube” and an “idiot”, are very similar to one another! I’d have to say that calling people idiots on here is necessary in some cases! Right idiot?? Don’t come on here to call people names and make fun of their spelling ability! In all reality, it makes you look like the complete IDIOT! And about all 4 of the people arrested, they are all innocent until proven guilty!! Yes, a couple of them, and for surely probably one of them is without a doubt guilty, but all of them are innocent until proven guilty, and that is a fact! God bless.
sara you are an idiot and obviously do not understand what your talking about. i challenge you to contact the prosecutors office and have them explain to you the process when a confidential informant is used. yes our legall system has flaws, unfortunately it always will but that doesnt mean our guys and girls in green and blue arent out there batteling evil day in and day out in an attempt to make our society a better place. i myself like reading about the swat team and its team of motivated officers risking their own safety on these missions that counter drugs and crime in our county. keek up the good work LCSO !!
Trust me, Emily, I know these two personally. The younger one is NOT an upstanding citizen of Lewis County! They both need to go away for a long time.
what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? It says the one brother has a clean record!
Amen, BobbyinLC! It seems the worst offenders are the posters accusing other posters of being idiots. I can easily overlook the occasional typo, but some posts are becoming hard to decode. Maybe it’s a case of “posting while drinking” or people so irate they literally can’t see straight, but the spelling seen in Sirens is giving the impression Lewis County is filled with a bunch of uneducated rubes. Now I know that can’t be the case, can it?
My Christmas list for Sirens:
1. Spellcheck
2. A “like” button
That said, thanks for all you do, Sharyn. You are appreciated.
Sharyn needs to install spell check on the reply section ha ha. While drug dealers may not be breaking into houses or leaving syringes lying around the people who buy their drugs do.
Unfortunately investigating drug cases often times requires informants and these are people who are only cooperating so they can reduced time for their own crimes. Not an easy thing.
Getting that much crap off the street is a good job by law enforcement.
Most of you, are nothing but Know it alls. The truth is most of you are stupid as to how the world turns. You all think you know the law and the facts surrounding cases. The truth is most of you dont have a clue. Stop trying to protray your so smart when it comes to the law and the procedure of the LCSO. Get a life Know it alls.
They did a great job catching these scums. hey tweaker girl stop defending them. they belong locked away for life… anyone who sells these drugs into our community are worse scum than the Druggy s themselves
“I guaruntee you these brothers are not running around breaking into houses or leaving used syringes on the ground for our kids to find.”
One cannot guarantee that druggies do not also commit other crimes. How many home burglaries are because of a druggie looking for things to sell? How many have made it into Sirens? The big ones that I remember were the druggies that got shot and killed in Onalaska, the druggie that broke into a home while the kids were there, and the meth user that woke the guy and his new bride up in the middle of the night, and ended up getting shot. That’s not to account for the numerous break-ins recorded where there were things stolen but no one was home or got hurt. Or all the business burglaries, like copper and scrap metal.
And maybe those syringes were not dropped by these guys, but that doesn’t mean that they were not supplied by them.
Sorry, gunna have to get a better defense then “I guar-un-tee you!”
Sara , no they aren’t breaking into house’s ect,,just providing drugs to those who commit the crimes. Give me a break!
amazing…your reading it…rite!
You ladies need better friends to gossip about.
If you actually know as much as you are acting like you do, you are way too involved with the wrong type of people.
And I really don’t care what these brothers didn’t do, I care about what they did do so stop trying to play whos the biggest loser with your dirtbag acquaintances.
Good job LCSO! Thank you for removing more scum from our county.
Pretty sure their were a few informants on this one who are “bad bad people” LCSO does not care about cleaning this place up as much as they say because if that were the case they would bust someone and then make them do their time, not bust them, use them, bust someone else and let the origional perp free to run around and use and use and use and steal and steal and steal and get let back to do it again and again. I guaruntee you these brothers are not running around breaking into houses or leaving used syringes on the ground for our kids to find.
How much drugs did lewis county let the confidential informant take to the streets, and to top it off…lewis county said they would never work with this informant..because he is a bad bad person. Every one has a price…This one cost ?