Law&Crime Sidebar - BONUS EPISODE: Top 5 Drug-Related Arrests Caught on Bodycam

Episode Date: November 26, 2022

Every day in the U.S. law enforcement busts drug dealers and people carrying drugs and many times it's captured by body-worn cameras. The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy goes through 5 busts with retired DEA Agent Steve Murphy who helped take down Columbian drug king pin Pablo Escobar. Busted in this episode: a former corrections officer, a former sheriff's deputy, a man sleeping in the back of his truck and more.GUEST:Steve MurphyCheck out Steve's book! Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo EscobarLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Hmm. Hey. Drug busts happen every day, across the country. and many times some of these big busts are caught on body camera. I'm Ann Janette Levy, and welcome to this special edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast.

We are taking a look at some drug busts that have taken part across the country. A lot of these are in Florida, actually, and we're going to talk about why these are interesting or what was going on when the person was captured on camera with a lot of drugs. So joining me to break these down is Steve Murphy. a retired DEA agent. He's also the co-host of the Game of Crimes podcast and author of Manhunters, How We Took Down Pablo Escobar. Steve, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Thank you, Anjanet. It's an honor to be here with you. I appreciate you having me on the show. Yeah, I'm very interested to have you on. First of all, how long did you work for the DEA? Well, I was an agent for 26 years,

but I was a uniform cop before that for 12 years, so a total of 38 years in law enforcement. Wow, that's a long time. So you've seen a lot. especially taking down a Pablo Escobar. So let's take a look at our first bust here. This actually happened in Flegler County, Florida. A deputy found James Wilson Duke asleep in a vehicle at a gas station. Take a look at what happened when the deputy first approached his car last September. Hey, Sheriff's Office. Right here. You okay? What's going on? I'm trying not to. I mean you're not doing a real good deal with it.

Huh? You're not doing a real good job, baby. Okay, well there's no need for an attitude. You okay? Yeah. I don't have an attitude. Huh? What's your first name? Uh, Justin. Justin?

Yeah. Do you have a middle initial? Huh? Middle initial? Middle name? Uh... I don't like that. Middle initial?

Yep. My... It's not that hard. Unless you're trying to make up a name. No, man. Well, I mean, why are y'all messing with me? Huh? I got permission to be here.

I don't know that. I don't know that. I got a call here about an alarm, checking out the property, making sure everything's secure, and I find you passed out in the passenger seat of the vehicle, and you're giving me a hard time to give me your name. Oh, got a needle. Yep, shocker. With stuff in it. Loaded syringe, careful.

Scale. Passenger. Pardillery tools. We got all that. And that's also out, like that's not normal for that to be. Hmm. Hey. Okay, Steve, so we have a deputy approaching this vehicle.

The guy is obviously asleep, groggy, maybe he was high. I don't know, maybe he was coming down off some drugs, but he's got burglary tools in the vehicle, and they find a lot of fentanyl, 338 grams. That's quite a bit. So your take on this bust? Well, it was, I mean, you start to watch the video. You felt for the officer that's approaching the truck because the wind is open. and you're not quite sure what's going to happen.

And quite honestly, I was anticipating somebody jumping up and maybe some self-protection taking, being required, I guess we'd say. But when she finally got the guy awake, obviously he was groggy. He was coming off of something because, you know, he did say it was, I think it was 3 a.m. when they were there. And he starts to answer questions, but, you know, he gives his first name, which then later he changes. But when she asked for his middle initial, that just really confused him.

And you're thinking that maybe now he's, his brain's starting to, he's starting to wake up realizing, do I want to give her my real name? Because she might run a warrant check on me. There might be an outstanding warrant. But what really concerned me is, is she had her, her notepad out where she was taking notes.

And all of a sudden, you see him, his hands disappear. And then if you watch, you'll notice she puts her notepad down, because she realizes instantly what the potential danger is right there. The best thing was that happened is when backup showed up.

I mean, you just haven't been, a cop for so long my heart's bleeding watching what this officer's going through and at that point it sounds like she's alone out there and just not a safe situation for any police officer but then when they finally get him cuffed up and there's no resistance and they start doing their search I like the way it was beeped out because of what they just found there holy whatever you know and I mean today's day we know fentanyl is such a scourge in our country here it's that's the leading threat we have from the synthetic drug market right now so

people might say, well, however many grams it was, that's not a lot. Well, if we equate that out to how many people, you break it down into micrograms, it's a lot. It's any amount at all is a lot of fentany. Yeah, actually, it is a lot of fentanyl. The sheriff there said that this was enough fentanyl to kill 100,000 people. And we know, too, that when law enforcement is dealing with fentanyl, and yet we've heard instances in which, you know, officers have gotten this on their skin and possibly then become woozy or even start to OD and also inhaling it. So it's a really powerful, potent drug. Plus, a lot of this is being manufactured. It's not really the medical grade fentanyl. It's being manufactured in these labs. Right. In Mexico. I mean, let's just throw it out

there. It comes out of Mexico and the precursor chemicals are being provided by China. Yeah. And it's, it's terrible. And that's why people are getting hooked. It kills people so frequently. A lot of people anymore. It seems like they're not even addicted to heroin. They're addicted to fentanyl because that's what they're getting. You know, there's even, I'm sorry to interrupt your engineette, but there's a video out there of a deputy sheriff that had conducted a traffic stop. They found powder fentanyl. He didn't get it on his skin. He just happened to get in the wrong airspace with that fentanyl and overdose right there. The video's on YouTube. You can find it and watch it. Luckily, the officers there had Narcan. I think they said it took four Narcan hits to bring him back to life. That's how dangerous fentanyl is. Didn't even

touch his skin. It was just the airborne particles from fentanyl that causes death. And they were able to save him. Well, our next bust is also in Florida. This is in Volusia County. And that's in the Daytona Beach area. If this happened in March of last year, the sheriff said that Christina Guess, who was a former prison guard, get that, that she led a drug trafficking ring that sold 24 pounds of uncut methamphetamine in a one year period. So let's take a look as she's taken into custody. What is wrong? Don't, that hurts my wrist. Put your hands by your back.

Okay. What is going on? You have a warrant for your arrest. For what? I'm going to tell you in just a moment, okay? And you just said a brake light. Yeah, I did. Ow, out.

Come on, now that hurts my wrist. Well, don't hold your hands like that. Oh, well, you had them like that. I'm sorry. My boyfriend is just flowing in the yard. Right there? No, right there. That's not your boyfriend.

Get your hands up! Put your hands up! Don't you move! Don't you move! Move! Open the car door! Open the car door! Come on over here, guys. Keep your hands out the window. Keep your hands out the window. I got them at gunpoint, stand by. Keep your hands out the window. Come out of the car. Go down to the ground. Get down on the ground. Put your hands behind your back. Put your hands behind your back. your hands behind your back. Okay, Steve. So several other people were arrested in this operation.

They actually called it Operation Guess Who for Christina Guess. She's like the Kingpin, right? So it was named after her. There were a bunch of people taken into custody for this. And during her arrest, they actually said they found 1.4 pounds of meth that was seized along with 348 grams of cocaine and 11 hydrocodone pills. So my first question to you is this is uncut meth. what does that mean well if it's uh we kind of graded uh methamphetamine if it was called if it was referred to as ice that was a 95% or higher purity level so and that's that's really good stuff you know they will use smaller amounts which you know depending on what side what amount of meth you have you can make more money if you have to use smaller amounts because people get the same buzz out of it or

whatever it is they get out of it anybody uses meth needs their head examine i'll be honest with It's just an unbelievable drug. And it seems like the people that use it are always the ones that will have scabs on their face because it creates this fictitious itch on their skin and they just continue to claw it themselves. For whatever reason, it seems like most of them have lost some, if not all, of their teeth. Because I guess it does something to your dental work. Oh, it's nasty. I don't understand why anybody would use it.

Yeah, I don't either. What did you take of, you know, Christina guess, I feel like when I'm watching this video, I feel like she knows she's caught. She just turns around, puts her arms behind her back. She knows what's coming. So it's good that she didn't resist, that they were taken into custody without incident. Well, her being former, and I don't even want to call her law enforcement, but a former corrections officer. And that's not a slight to my correction officer friends out there because we have them all over the world.

But we have a saying that we use. Nobody hates a bad cop more than a good cop. and the fact that she used to be part of our fraternal order, our culture, and she chose to deal drugs, well, I'm sure she was drilling them there into the jails wherever she was working. I mean, they should take her, she should receive the harshest penalty that can be dealt out because she knew, she knew what the dangers were. She also knew how much money she could make, and so we know what she chose.

You know, you've seen the thin blue line flag. You can see one on my wall here behind me. That's a real thing. And she chose to step across that thin blue line over to all. what we call the dark side. So no sympathy, hope they throw the book at her, throw the key away to the jail sale, hope she never walks free in our country again. And 24 pounds, that's a lot. It's a lot more than personal. You said that. I mean, I'm not sure how much fentanyl's selling for right now per pound, but as the chunk of change for her. All right, let's move on now to

rapper Boozy Badass. He seems to be getting pulled over quite a bit in Georgia. And we're going to show you a traffic stop involving Boozy Badass and one of his friends. This happened in Fairburn, Georgia. He and his friend were taken out of this Cadillac Escalade. They were placed in handcuffs and then police searched the vehicle. And Bozzy, you're going to see, was not happy. Hey, stay back for me a quick. It's going to be detained for now, okay? All right, real quick. All right.

Is there any weapons on you? Knives, guns, drugs? Are there any marijuana in the car? No, I'm smoking the guns, bro. Okay. You're good? I got you. You're honest with me, I'm honest with you, okay?

I can't keep going through this, bro, like I got. I just can't, bro. I can't, bro. I can't. No wrong. I'm gonna do shit. It's illegal to the court. Bro, like, bro.

I gotta go to y'all's security. They're by charge. Don't get ignis, but I'm gonna get ignis. Let me throw them hogging down to be y'all. Why? I'm gonna punch on the first white boy I see in that. I swear, I'm gonna do it now. In the nurse, I'm gonna spit on that.

I ain't playing, boy. I'm tired, boy. White child, why child, watch I bet I get him on. You don't have. You're amazing. I bet you. Treasurer. I'm ready.

Now, I'm ready to go to death. I'm ready to go back. You can go and ride me out. I'm going to ride me out. I'm used to these. Where I'm from. Pull me up. I got 39 to red.

I don't give a. So, Steve, we have this boozy, boozy badass standing in the road by the police field. He's in handcuffs, his friend's in handcuffs. His friend is quiet. I mean, he behaves, but Boozy kind of stands there and is saying all of these things. And I wasn't smoking a joint. I don't give enough and talking about maybe spitting on the police officer. They let him go. They cited the friend for having 11 grams of marijuana. But talk to me about when you're dealing with somebody who is so agitated like that. What is your take on that? Well, I watched that video and I've got a couple. One, did you notice where the traffic stop ended up? It's in the middle lane and you've got two lanes of traffic zooming on each side of you.

That just scared the crap out of me for the police officer safety because I've been in that position where you're, you're not only have to watch who you're, you've pulled over, but you have to watch to make sure you're not get hit by an oncoming car. And I've actually been hit during a, we did a DUI chase one night. This was a hundred years ago. So that was that was a big concern. but luckily backup showed up relatively quickly and they're able to block off one lane of traffic on the right side of the car.

So that gave him somewhat of a safety zone. I'd like to know who gave this guy his name, Billy Badass. Is that what he thinks of himself? It's a boozy badass. Yeah, he's a rapper. Yeah, and well, I missed that one. And I probably won't go by his music. But it should be boozy, smartass.

You know, he got out. officers treated him with the utmost respect with professionalism. You could tell the officers trying to create, trying to de-escalate a potential situation by how you doing? How's everything going today? He's not being confrontational whatsoever. But this jerk, he decides that he's going to be a tough guy. Or, you know, just running your mouth doesn't make you a tough guy. Does it tick you off as a police officer? Absolutely does. But you know what? We have a thing called the First Amendment here in the United States, part of our Constitution. People have the right to freedom of speech, right? If he hasn't committed an assault on the police officer, if he hasn't committed any other crime, as much as I hate to say it and I hated it when it happened to me, he has the right to say what's on his mind.

That's what makes law enforcement. Again, talking about that thin blue line. That's what makes them the heroes. That's what makes them the professionals. And you just kind of have to stand there and take it. People like that, though, they will screw up and his time will come. He'll end up in jail. The thing that was interesting to me, I noticed how the police officers didn't react.

they didn't engage him. I could imagine some police officers would have been telling him to pipe down, which may have just escalated things and made it worse. But they just kind of let him go, let him do what he was going to say. And they, I mean, they did find drugs in the car. Let's not act like they didn't find anything. So he's acting kind of irate when they indeed found, you know, 11 grams of marijuana in there. Yeah. And you said he repeatedly gets pulled over in Georgia. There's a reason for that. It's not because it's because he thinks he's above the law. He thinks he's smarter than all the police officers out there. What we call that law enforcement is going after the low-hanging fruit. He thinks he's a smart guy. How smart will he be once he's in prison? Let's look at our next bust. This involves a guy

named Timothy Munford, and he had warrants out, right? So when you have warrants, probably not a good idea to go on Facebook Live and advertise your location. Well, that's exactly what he did. A He was wanted out of Marion County, Florida. So law enforcement there contacted deputies in Volusia County, Florida. And they took him into custody. Let's take a look. I got an appointment for 1030. Timothy.

How are you going to? Yeah. What's the I got appointment for 1030. Okay. What's the name? Timothy, yeah. Just one ski? Yeah.

Okay. All right. All right. All right. All right. Just me. By yourself? Yeah.

Okay. All right. Next form is our rental contract. Just makes you responsible for the jet ski who will rent from us a day and you damage to it. Damage can't happen as on you're there. Everything that we gave will do it. Find us a life jacket. Alright, aye, aye, aye.

Get away. Bro. Bro. What the f***? We are not even from here. Get away. Get away. All right.

Aye, aye. Go! Go over here. Show your head! Show your head now! Show your head now! Show your head in the Orange Life! Show your head!

Drop the phone! Drop the phone! Get on the ground! Get on the ground! Get away from him. Get away from our deputy. Get away! Go!

Over here. Now, Steve, Now, Steve, deputies found two guns, two bags of marijuana and a powder that tested positive for fentanyl. Timothy Munford was convicted of two felonies and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He got out last year, late last year. So it never ceases to amaze me. Maybe he just thought he was smarter. Maybe he wasn't thinking about it. But the guy has warrants. And yet he goes on Facebook live and they can basically tell where he is. So your take on that. How do you spell idiot? I mean, good grief. He knows, he knows there's warrants out for him. He knows he's holding weapons. He knows he's holding drugs.

Again, you know what? I guess we say thankful that, you know, the criminals aren't the smartest people in the world because that's what gets them caught. This is a perfect example. And I just mentioned about the low-hanging fruit. This guy might even be at the very bottom level of that low-hanging fruit. What an idiot?

What else can you say about the guy? Here, come and put me in jail. I'm ready to go. Yeah, it never ceases to amaze me that people do things like this. You know, he got, you know, 18 months in prison or whatever, and he got out. But the fact that, you know, you're wanted and then you go on Facebook Live, I mean, I'm glad nobody was hurt. There was a woman there who was also kind of detained as well. So nobody was hurt. But then again, you know, pretty wild that he would do this, advertise his location. But you got to love her comments, too. Are y'all seeing this? Because she's filming this on

on Facebook live. Yeah, we're seeing it. What an idiot. Our last bust involves, sadly, a law enforcement officer. This is Zachary Wester. He was a deputy in Jackson County, Florida. And that's up in the panhandle of Florida. Wester was accused of planting drugs on people that he was pulling over.

And I know, Steve, this is going to make your blood boil. So he was wearing a body camera, you know, when this was going on. So let's take a look at a little bit of Zachary Wester in action on body camera and then what he said at trial. I'll be able to get what I need. I swear my goddamn wild. Debbie Lee, you see the blue. I just want to verify for the camera and I go.

Okay. The methamphetamine that you found in that vehicle, Did you plan it there? I did not. And the report that you wrote in that case, is everything that you put in your report true and accurate? It is. So Steve, Zachary Wester, denies that he planted drugs on anybody.

I mean, that would be really egregious. It is egregious. You can't get more egregious than that if you were indeed planting evidence on an innocent person. Absolutely. It's horrible. Well, we take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, which that's what our country's bound is formed on, right? Now, does that make it more difficult for us to do our job? Absolutely.

But the last thing we want to do is put an innocent person in jail, right? I was a cop for 38 years. I had one instance, I'm guessing I locked up thousands of people in 38 years. I had one instance where somebody accused me of planning drugs in his car. I was a city cop in southern West Virginia back in the 1970s. I was making barely enough money to feed myself and my family. Where would I've gotten access to drugs to plan on this guy? You know, I don't care about him that much, to be quite honest with you.

But in 38, and of course, when he brought it out in court, it was recognized for what it was, was him trying to make things up. There's nothing, it was false. The fact that this guy took the same oath I did, it does. It makes your blood boy. It pisses you off. It's what it does. And I'll tell you, I retired in 2013.

I live in Orlando, by the way. So these are some of the people in my state, you know. But what I like to say is just because I retired, it doesn't mean that my oath ever expired. This is a guy who will make all in law enforcement professionals, all the dedicated men and women out there who are risking their lives every day to protect all of us, make us all look bad because he's a jerk, because he's a jackass, has no business carrying a badge. no business carry credentials, no business, calling himself a public servant. You know, a lot of people think the term public service servant is a derogatory term. I don't. I think it's a badge of honor because we chose to serve our fellow man.

He's not serving anybody doing what he's doing. Yeah, it's very disturbing. Well, he was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison. He was convicted of multiple felonies. He's serving that time right now. Well, Steve Murphy, a retired DEA agent, co-host of Game of Crimes podcast and author of Manhunter's How We Took Down Pablo Escobar. Thank you so much for joining us.

We really appreciate it. Certainly my pleasure. I thank you, Ancinette. I would get to do this again. Yeah, we loved having you. And you can learn more about Steve at DEA narcos.com. That's their website. Thank you.

And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. It is produced by Sam Goldberg and Logan Harris. Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager. Kiera Bronson handles our social media. and Alyssa Fisher handles our bookings. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast, you can always watch it as well on Law and Crimes YouTube channel.

I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. Hey guys, Sean Sticks Larkin here from On Patrol Live. The holiday season's upon us, and if you're looking for that perfect gift to stuff down in that stocking or put under the tree for somebody else, pick up my book, Breaking Blue, real-life stories of cops falsely accused. It's a great read, something you don't want to miss.

You can pick it up on Amazon. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.