DRUG PROBES TAKE AIM AT TOP DEALERS

There probably is not a person in the country who wasn't surprised when NFL ex-superstar O.J. Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife and her friend.

Similarly, surprise was generally the reaction locally following the arrest of Edward L. Downs for buying cocaine from an undercover drug agent, and in Poplar Bluff with the arrest of Robert R. Wisdom on charges of drug trafficking and arson.

"Cases with such high-profile defendants as Downs and Wisdom tend to get a lot of notoriety, but in the long run they're just like any other," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Ferrell. "It just goes to show that no one is immune from the far-reaching effects of the drug market."

Downs, 73, a former Cape Girardeau attorney who had a long career in local politics, is serving a 55-month sentence at the federal prison in Marion, Ill. In June 1993, he pleaded guilty to charges stemming from two drug indictments handed down by a federal grand jury. Downs, who had served locally as an assistant attorney general and assistant city prosecutor, was sentenced in October.

Wisdom, 50, a Poplar Bluff businessman, was found guilty in March of conspiring to possess and distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine and two counts of purposely burning a building used in interstate commerce. He was sentenced last month to serve nine years in the federal penitentiary.

Although part of the responsibilities of the local U.S. attorney's office is prosecution of white-collar crimes such as bank fraud and insider trading, Ferrell said seldom does the office encounter cases of affluent people accused of mixing with the drug market.

"But with the resources we've got now, we have had to move away from prosecuting the guy making the small sales on the street corner, to looking at the overall drug distribution network, and prosecuting those at the top," he said. "We've also had to move from each law enforcement agency trying to handle their own cases, to multijurisdictional task forces who can widen the scope of the investigation and go after the large-scale dealers.

"Our investigations are now aimed at developing sizable cases against more significant dealers and holding those people accountable for not one or two sales, but an amount of drugs distributed over a period of time," Ferrell said. "The added time and investigation can mean the difference between 18 months and 200 months in a federal prison for the offender."

A person may be arrested with only 10 to 15 grams of cocaine base in their pocket, but the investigation could prove over a period of months or even years that the suspect had been responsible for distributing multiple kilos of cocaine, Ferrell said.

"We as federal prosecutors have at our disposal some of the best weapons to fight the war on drugs," said Ferrell.

The only way for offenders to avoid stiff, mandatory federal sentencing guidelines is to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in their investigation.

Downs, who faced a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison and a fine of up to $2 million after pleading guilty to the charges, opted to cooperate with federal investigators. He and his co-conspirators were accused of distributing more than 500 grams of cocaine in the area since September 1988.

When investigators get to the head of a particular drug organization, they don't often find a single, wealthy individual running the show.

"Cases like those of Downs and Wisdom are virtually the exceptions to the rule," said Ferrell. "You're not going to find some rich, powerful person pumping money into a drug organization; that's just not the way it works.

"More often than not, a drug organization or network is led by someone who is considered secure enough by suppliers to be given drugs with payment pending their distribution," he said. "For those people, selling drugs is a job, not a high-risk business venture."

Downs admitted to having been given drugs before paying his supplier. An undercover drug officer sold Downs a kilo of cocaine for $20,000 -- far under its street value -- on the promise that Downs would pay the remainder after the drug's distribution locally.

Typically, drug suppliers are not users, investigators say. Downs involvement with drugs, they say, revolved around his addiction.

"The head guys are in it for the money," said Ferrell. "Once they start using they jeopardize their entire operation -- it affects profits and sales. That's why most suppliers wouldn't touch the stuff."

Shirley Armstead, a special agent with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency who worked an undercover detail for six years, said agents more often encounter wealthy people buying drugs than selling them.

"Drug addiction is a disease that permeates all social and economic barriers," she said. "If you become addicted to controlled substances, it doesn't matter if you are the president of some corporation or a homeless street junkie, you're going to be out looking for the one thing that you need -- the drugs.

"It's sad when we see anyone get mixed up in drugs, rich or poor," she said. "But when the rich people want drugs, they don't have to rob a store, burglarize someone's home or turn tricks to get their daily fix.

"But everyone has to pay the same piper in the end."