Defendants, left to right, in green, Jose Luis Felix-Gonzalez, Juan Fernando Campos-Campos and Manuel Rojas-Valdez appear in Lewis County Superior Court
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A 52-year-old man with a conviction for trafficking cocaine and another for illegal re-entry after deportation was charged today in Lewis County Superior Court with two others in connection with 25 pounds of drugs seized in the parking lot of Home Depot in Chehalis yesterday.
Jose Luis Felix-Gonzalez, who had a temporary identification card out of Stone Park, Illinois, when arrested, spoke through a Spanish interpreter in court this afternoon.
Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Paul Masiello asked he be held on $2 million bail.
Also charged was Juan Fernando Campos-Campos, 29, a construction worker with a wife and three children from Vancouver, Washington. Masiello said Campos-Campos is a Mexican citizen who may be living here illegally, and temporary defense attorney Rachael Tiller said he has resided at the same address for three and a half years.
The alleged driver of the Scion sports car in which detectives found the drugs is 22-year-old out of work carpenter, Manuel Rojas-Valdez, of Rialto, California. Rojas-Valdez has no felony criminal history and didn’t use the services of the interpreter.
The men are charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver and possession of heroin with intent to deliver. Both are class B felonies, typically with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and/or a $25,000 fine.
Charging documents in the case describe how a detective with the Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team was contacted in recent days by a partner law enforcement agency regarding a large shipment of drugs coming to Lewis County. Yesterday, the detective was contacted again and told of a purple Nissan truck at the Wal-Mart parking lot.
Members of JNET converged on the parking lot, learned the truck was registered in Vancouver, Washington, saw three men standing around it and saw the white sports car they believed was involved.
The truck led the sports car to the Home Depot just to the north on the 1700 block of Northwest Louisiana Avenue, where they parked and a detective contacted them, Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Joel DeFazio wrote in charging documents.
Rojas-Valdez reportedly was advised of his rights and allowed the trunk of his car to be searched.
A large black trash bag contained bundles of drugs co-mingled with dryer sheets, according to DeFazio. A kilo-sized package was wrapped in carbon paper. The amount came to 23.3 pounds of methamphetamine and 2.35 pounds of heroin.
Once at the Lewis County Jail, the three were advised of their Miranda rights by Special Agent Rios and interviewed.
Felix-Gonzalez was implicated by the other two as the owner of the drugs and the one orchestrating their delivery, DeFazio wrote.
Felix-Gonzalez denied knowing or meeting the driver of the sports car and said he was at Home Depot because he was riding along with Campos-Campos in the truck.
Masiello said Felix-Gonzalez was convicted in October 2005 in North Carolina for trafficking cocaine and in August 2007 for illegal re-entry after deportation. Lewis County authorities believed he was using a false identity and name, according to DeFazio.
Judge James Lawler set bail for each of the suspects at $1 million. Felix-Gonzalez and Rojas-Valdez were assigned court-appointed lawyers.
Their arraignments are scheduled for Thursday.
It was just a week earlier when JNET arrested the driver of a truck hauling Starbucks products between California and Spokane, and his passenger, in Lewis County after finding 126 pounds of methamphetamine in their sleeping berth, along with 2.4 pounds of suspected heroin, several thousand Oxycodone pills and a few grams of cocaine.
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Seized bundles of methamphetamine get weighed. / Courtesy photo by Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
To: Ed Lane
Has it ever occurred to anyone that drug dealers are simply supplying (which doesn’t justify as a good thing or right thing to do) but the real problem here is “your children” for purchasing and consuming the drugs. If people like “our children” would make better choices or perhaps be raised differently then the world of narcotics would not exist or perhaps would not play such a huge role in our worlds problems because there wouldn’t be so many buyers making them money. Police can keep busting people for drug trafficking but that world will never end until these new generations have a better view of what they want in life and what’s good for them. For now you can continue pointing fingers and let the ignorance continue.
I don’t know why people think that they are untouchable and won’t get caught when they are not God and always will eventually get caught, die and be judged by the creator
Why in the previous pictures article there are more bundles and in this picture there are less bundles?
This articles states he consented to a search were as in the last article it says police dog axel alerted around the trunk area. I thought axel was retired because of health issues? Some inconsistencies here?
What a large goal of Lewis county to take the drugs off the streets of Lewis county .. . If I’ve ever witnessed propaganda this is the empire State building of it all. Come on people do u believe they found 126lbs of narcotics in a semi carrying Starbucks coffee products and then let then coffee products continue their journey on til destination reached. Ha if that’s the case double shot if exoresso has a whole new meaning . And now this astronomical bust holy cow …I’m not so quick to believe that such busts are the results of jnet the hide in bushes for the sale of a qrt oz of weed heros. I commend them for the protection they provide the community when they are legit in their duties. But patrig themselves on the back and in the eyes. Of the community thru propaganda? I’d like to see this evidence, the .30 must be the little man’s bag. …..I suppose at trial a person can view the evidence this might be a good case to watch unfold.
Yet Trump is the asshole for trying to clean the country up.
These scumbags should be put on a deportation bus that “disappears”.
I am impressed by many different ways they pose and play the drug bricks. The drug war will never end. They are decades late on these busts and deportations. Many of these Latin gangs have already retired as legitimate businesses.
It is time to come down hard on these people that deal drugs. They are killing our children and ruining the lives of man. Shot them and send a serious message to drug dealers.