By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A Shelton woman and a Packwood woman were arrested outside a pizza restaurant in Packwood yesterday as one was allegedly about to exchange cash for two half-pound packages of methamphetamine from the other.
Torina M. Lorenzano, 46, from Yakima, and Dawn M. Cooper, 43, from Shelton, were arrested by members of the local drug detective team and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
They were booked into the Lewis County Jail and brought before a judge this afternoon in Lewis County Superior Court.
Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer told the judge Lorenzano admitted to supplying three to four pounds of meth and more than a half pound of heroin each week to people in Lewis and Thurston counties.
Cooper acknowledged buying two of those pounds of meth each week from Lorenzano, Meyer said.
Both were charged today with numerous felonies. Judge James Lawler set bail at $100,000 for Lorenzano, and $150,000 for Cooper.
Law enforcement found more than $4,800 cash in Cooper’s truck, most of which she said was to purchase the meth, and the rest for a past debt, according to charging documents.
According to charging documents, detectives with the local Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team began to follow Cooper as she drove throughout county yesterday, based in part on monitored phone calls from the Lewis County Jail in which she and an inmate discussed drugs and money in veiled language.
JNET announced this afternoon their three-county investigation began in July, in coordination with the DEA, U.S. Marshals and the fugitive apprehension team with the state Department of Corrections.
The trafficking organization they began looking into deals in both heroin and meth, according to JNET.
According to JNET, they identified Cooper as the person they believed was continuing business for her significant other, a 41-year-old Centralia man who was arrested Sept. 29 for allegedly possessing and delivering meth.
Five ounces of meth were seized in connection with the arrest of William “Aaron” Barge, according to authorities. Charging documents state over $12,000 cash was confiscated as well.
“While investigating Cooper, numerous ‘workers’ and customers were identified as well as her main supplier,” JNET wrote in its news release. “This investigation is ongoing and several more suspects are being sought by JNET.”
On Monday, JNET learned Cooper was staying in a motel in Tumwater, and although she fled, law enforcement subsequently allegedly found under the mattress in her room approximately 68 grams of meth and 28 grams of heroin, according to court papers.
Yesterday in Packwood, law enforcement watched as Lorenzano carried a bag from her truck and got into Cooper’s vehicle, which contained the pound of meth in two burrito-sized packages as well as a white smaller package that contained five ounces of heroin, according to court papers.
When Lorenzano’s truck was searched, another half pound of meth plus three gram of cocaine were found, the documents state.
Inside Cooper’s vehicle, officers located six to 10 grams of meth, a digital scale and numerous “clean” baggies, the documents relate.
The street value of the seized drugs is estimated at $150,000.
Their arraignments are set for Oct. 20.
The overall investigation is being reviewed by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Assistant United States Attorney’s Office for charging considerations, according to JNET.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
You’re right about the corruption Soaper. And I believe the county has employees from the Chehalis offices here to try and discredit anybody who criticizes the way in which city and county officials operate.
I guarantee you that from the bottom to the top, those who support prohibition profit from the black market.
All you have to do is look at all the things that should be legal, regulated, and treated with respect from drugs to human organs. If they should be legal and regulated, but aren’t, it’s 100% PROOF that those who want to keep it illegal do so for fear of losing their livelihoods and source of income.
There is no other reason to prohibit grown adults from accessing what they want to legally buy; other than to increase the value of those things by virtue of their scarcity. There really is no other valid reason.
They can lie and say they care about society, but these are the same people who harass and name-call people who expressing something as benign as a difference in opinion. They expect people to believe that they treat their fellow humans worse than pond scum because they care about kids or they care about society? Nonsense. They care only about the money the black market brings them and keeping their true motives hidden.
Billy, you are correct. A much more educated post than most of the rubes on here (and in the area in general) are capable of of processing.
These agencies know that they have a racket going to steal peoples’ money and play cowboy and they will do anything they can including misleading the public to keep it going and justify it. They know firsthand what they do does absolutely no good in the big picture. Think about it…this was an above average bust for them. Actually it was pretty big for them considering they usually get no more than 20-40 bucks worth of drugs per bust (and therefore really mess up the arrestee’s life because now they have a record). Anyhow, multiple agencies that have been doing an investigation since summer that cost much, much more than what they confiscated (stole) and everybody who woke up today and felt like doing drugs will go to bed tonight having bought and done the drugs they woke up wanting to do. The point being is that there so many places to get drugs that when they take down one supplier there is somebody already in place to keep things rolling. It’s basically the “next man up” concept. At best they kept somebody from being able to score their stuff for an hour or so while the buyer makes a couple extra phone calls.
For example, in the last 2-3 weeks there have been a number of above average size busts in the area. While they try and convince the public of what a heroic deed they have done everybody is still getting high. They are fighting an unwinnable battle and they know it, but won’t admit it because then they wouldn’t be able to go around stealing people’s money and property and playing soldier with all their military equipment that they have no business having.
Anybody with half a brain and who isn’t corrupt sees this, but whatever. There are so many laws and it’s such a powerful system now that it’s only going to get worse. They won’t ever relinquish the power they’ve been given. At the end of the day though drugs will be available and people’s lives will be ruined sitting behind bars when they shouldn’t be there.
P.S. I love the way they at the very least triple the value of what they say they find. I don’t know where they get their “street value” estimates, but they are getting ripped the hell off.
See you posted my love Censorship but not my original comment. Why because I have a point. Post it or don’t post anything I say. Because people want to know what’s being said. Your just as bad a CNN and other Dinosaur media outlets.
Love Censorship
Furthermore, if you believe that arresting people for deciding what to put into their own bodies will help stop the flow of drugs, then you’re dumber than your simple narrow-minded posts allude to.
If you don’t think that spending enormous sums of money for cops to play Keystone Cops at the expense of decent schools and more books for children doesn’t do irreparable harm to our way of life as Americans, then you need to be locked up where you can’t hurt anybody else or sit on the sidelines and cheer while children are being denied the right to a better education and a better future.
Basically, what ya’ll are saying is that it’s good for the community for the police to spend enormous amounts of local and county tax dollars going after people using something that can be otherwise procured from a doctor with a prescription.
Exactly why is it better to spend money putting adults in prison for making adult decisions about what they put into their own bodies than to spend that money on schools, roads, and recreational projects like parks and pools?
Do you really think kids are better off or safer with bigger prisons than more books and better classrooms? If so, then I can understand why you would disagree without the courtesy of providing a critical response. People like ya’ll would rather skip all the things that symbolize civility such as politeness and go straight for the insults, innuendos, and fanciful imaginings.
If name-calling and innuendo is all you have to bolster your argument in favor of a police state, then the police have some very challenged supporters in the intellect department of the LC Nitwits Club.
Shit! $4,800 to buy $150,000 worth of meth AND PAY OFF OLD DEBT!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Either I’m in the wrong line of work or something is seriously fucked up with those numbers.
I’m sure little Billy is upset that his delivery didn’t arrive this week. As to who the snitch is.?…Billy can’t read or he is to doped up to comprehend the article. As the result of detectives listening to phone calls from the jail they put together enough probable cause to act. All of the detectives can sit right at their desks and either listen live or listen to the recorded conversation. Tweakers like Billy make it to easy…huh Billy.???
After a long winded comment by Billy O, I’d almost be willing to guess his supply chain may have been directly effected. Just a hunch. Who else sticks up for drug dealers?
Good job! lock these scum up.
We need a lot more of this kind of police work.
I wonder who’s the bottom bitch in the relationship between the LCSO and the Feds.
I wonder if they provide reach-arounds when they’re providing their ‘services’ at taxpayer expense of if they just get some snitch to do it for them.
I’m amazed either agency can even do any work, what with them so busy scaring poor people into doing their work for them.
Let’s see who the “upstanding” and “trustworty” rat is they parade in front of jury this time. My guess is on one of those professional snitches, you know, the ones who provide the tools these corporate agencies need to keep profiting, the ones who never do real time, the ones that go right back to a life of felonious crime.
While these jerkoffs play dress-up and pretend they’re in a war, and chase around adults who made the horrible crime of taking profits out of the pockets of pharmaceutical execs, REAL criminals continue to bleed pensioners, the sick, the disabled, and poor financially dry.
These useless corporate agencies like JNET, the DEA, and city Police have outlasted their usefulness the day they were created. The government needs to try harder to find reputable people to do the country’s work for them, people who won’t act as if they’re above the law, and as if their jurisdiction is limitless. People who will act like the contracted government tools they are rather than people who act as if they ARE the government.
Nobody would have ever known these adults were putting pharma-competing drugs on the market had they not gone on a fishing expedition, no doubt out of boredom, since nobody is committing the real crimes but themselves.