Opinion ID: 495278
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: La Junta Marijuana Operations

Text: 7 Lager's first drug-related transaction with Kragness was in November 1978, when he lent Kragness $1,000 and a month later received $1,500 as repayment. Then, in February 1979, Kragness had Lager locate property near La Junta, Colorado for use as a clandestine airfield in the importation of marijuana from Oaxaca, Mexico. After Kragness inspected and approved the land Lager located, Lager, using Kragness's money, purchased the land, placing title in his own name. At the time of the land purchase, Kragness offered, and Lager accepted, a job as a transporter in Kragness's drug operation; Lager was to pick up drugs when planes arrived and carry them in a truck to further distribution points. Lager in fact began to perform this task, as well as a variety of others, making him a sort of general errand-boy for the drug organization. 8 Lager's first chance to act as a transporter came in August 1979, when, at Kragness's request, he traveled to Colorado with Deters and Holbrook. Kragness hoped to have Deters, who is a licensed pilot, take his place and serve as pilot on a drug run into the La Junta airfield. However, Deters was unable at this point to gain the confidence of Salvatore Sam Aleto, 5 a financial backer of the project. So the run was aborted, and Lager returned to Minnesota. Lager went to Colorado again in October and before Thanksgiving in November to meet anticipated planeloads of marijuana, but no loads arrived; Lager was told on the latter occasion that Holbrook had driven the marijuana from Mexico to California. 9 Then, late one night, shortly after Thanksgiving in 1979, Lager, at Kragness's direction, met a plane piloted by Deters and loaded with marijuana at the La Junta airstrip. Lager, Deters, and Kragness loaded the marijuana into a pickup truck. Lager drove the truck to Peter Caspersen's house, where he spent the night. The next morning, Kragness, Deters, and Aleto arrived. The men weighed the marijuana on Caspersen's scale and divided it among Aleto, Caspersen, and Kragness, each of whom had customers for the marijuana. Lager then drove Kragness's share of marijuana to Kragness's Nederland, Colorado home, where he hid it in a chimney. Kragness and two Canadian customers arrived later, and it was agreed that Lager would drive the marijuana to Grand Coulee Dam, Washington, and that Kragness would fly the marijuana from there to Canada. Lager met Kragness and one of the Canadians at the Grand Coulee Dam Airport, and helped them load the marijuana on Kragness's plane. Kragness and the Canadian took off, and Lager returned home. 10 Shortly before Christmas in 1979, Lager participated in another drug transaction similar to the transaction just after Thanksgiving. Deters piloted a planeload of marijuana into La Junta, Lager transported the marijuana to Caspersen's home, where it was divided up, and Lager then took Kragness's share to Kragness's home in Nederland. After Christmas, Lager drove the marijuana to Grand Coulee Dam, where he met Kragness. During bad weather, the two drove to Canada to meet the Canadians and returned to Grand Coulee Dam, smuggling about $63,000 (Canadian) received from the Canadians through United States Customs by secreting it in a car-door panel. When the weather cleared, Lager and Kragness loaded the marijuana onto a plane, and Kragness flew it to Canada. Upon Kragness's return, Lager went home to Minnesota, carrying the Canadian currency with him. 11 Over the course of these La Junta operations and thereafter, Lager performed a number of financial transactions related to the drug business. In April 1979, Lager and a Spring Grove woman named Bonnie Jones, in Kragness's presence, opened a bank account in Rochester, Minnesota, depositing $39,000 (Canadian) that Kragness had brought from Colorado. In October 1979, after the second aborted La Junta drug run, Lager received about $57,000 (Canadian) from Kragness in Colorado, and deposited it in the Rochester account when he returned to Minnesota. Lager also deposited the $63,000 (Canadian) that he and Kragness smuggled out of Canada into this account. The total deposits to this account from its opening through its closing in August, 1981, in United States dollars, were about $171,000. In late 1979 or early 1980, Lager received $5,000 (Canadian) from Deters, deposited it in the account, and returned an equivalent sum in United States currency to Deters. From time to time, Lager disbursed to Kragness funds that Kragness had entrusted to him; in one instance the funds went towards the purchase of an airplane. Lager sometimes laundered the funds by passing them through an account he had with a securities firm. In late 1981, Lager and Kragness placed Alaskan property owned by Kragness in Lager's name, so that Kragness could avoid having to account for the wealth it represented.