Crime Fiend

A multi-agency drug operation spearheaded by Delaware State Police and the FBI led to the largest fentanyl seizure in the history of the First State

The yearslong investigation, dubbed Operation No Mas, took down a Delaware-based drug trafficking organization headed by Delaware native Luis Renteria

The organized crime enterprise has ties to Pennsylvania, Florida and California, but most of its operations were in the First State.

This operation was conducted by the Delaware State Police, New Castle County Police Department, Wilmington Police Department, Philadelphia Police Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and has culminated with the arrest or indictment of 28 individuals on 252 felony charges. Multiple search warrants were executed which led to the mass seizure of drugs, guns, and suspected drug proceeds.

Renteria, along with the 27 others who were arrested as part of the investigation, faces a myriad of charges ranging from racketeering and conspiracy to drug dealing, money laundering and "multiple" firearms charges.

If convicted, Renteria, who police said deputized most of the day-to-day work to his underling, Jose Perez Rosa, faces 30 years in prison.

police seized 7.5 kilograms of fentanyl,

4.2 kilograms of powder cocaine,

1.1 kilograms of crack cocaine, a half-kilogram of heroin,

45.3 pounds of marijuana,

nearly 300 pills and 14 doses of LSD.

The drugs alone are worth more than $5 million.

Officers also confiscated 20 guns — one of which was stolen — as well as ammunition and a rifle. Five cars and more than $264,000 in cash was seized, too, when police executed 31 search warrants.

A statement from Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings "The amount of fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, drug money and guns seized in this sting has saved lives and will save lives." "The actions of these kinds of narcotics enterprises have ripples that stretch across our region and, at times, across the nation.

"Disrupting them helps disrupt a drug trade that ... breeds violence in Delaware."

Delaware State Police Lt. Robert Jones said that various law enforcement agencies, including New Castle County police, Wilmington police and the FBI, began separate investigations into Renteria's organization in February 2018 after receiving information from various "sources."

Because the agencies share information through an online intelligence system, they quickly learned each individual department was looking into "the same entity."

"That led us to come together," Jones said. "We haven't had this type of collaboration probably in a couple years, so it was nice for everyone to get together."

By working collaboratively, police were able to develop other sources that led them to stash houses around Newark and elsewhere in northern Delaware. The largest raid, conducted on July 2 when 10 search warrants were executed, netted “a large amount of illegal narcotics,” Jones said.

Police raided Renteria's Carole Road home in Brookside that day, during which they seized $179,751

There were also several stash houses in Philadelphia — one of which Philadelphia police raided — but the main operation was out of Newark, New Castle and the Stanton area.

The trafficking extended beyond Delaware and Pennsylvania. Renteria's workers are accused of bringing fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and other drugs into Delaware from California and Florida.

Jones did not say whether Renteria's operation is linked to other countries or cartels, but detectives are still investigating. He also did not elaborate on how investigators learned about Renteria's enterprise.

“This investigation exemplifies the shared public safety mission of Delaware law enforcement agencies in concert with our federal partners," Delaware State Police Col. Melissa Zebley said. "While we can see the scope of illegal drugs and weapons seized, it is hard to measure the full gravity this criminal organization could have had in our communities."

Col. Melissa Zebl

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In January of 2014 Instead of sending police to an address where a caller reported that shots were fired, a city 911 operator called her boyfriend, who in turn sent a text to warn the apparent shooter, police say. That operator, Alleshia L. Kennedy who was 26 at the time, was charged with hindering prosecution, official misconduct and malicious interference with emergency communications.

According to a court affidavit, Kennedy was working on Jan. 9 2014 when a call came in about a shooting just before 11 p.m. A caller, who had reported shots fired in the 1300 block of Chestnut St. moments earlier to a different 911 operator, was calling back to say she got the address wrong and said the shots came from a different home several doors down. She responded "OK, we'll let the officers know, yeah, we'll change it. We'll let them know," according to the affidavit.

But instead of entering the new address, police say Kennedy used her cellphone to call her boyfriend, who in turn immediately texted someone named "Crook" to warn him,

Quotes from a Delaware I line article read as follows... "Bro sum lady called the cops and told them your crib iz where the shots came from." Kennedy's boyfriend was Deontay Willingham, 24, a convicted felon who lived in the first block of 36th St.

Willingham also texted Crook, "So be easy and clean up". That the information about the address "was never put in," and his final instruction was "Erase dis."

According to court papers, when a 911 operator receives a call, the information is supposed to be entered into a computer system so that a dispatcher can relay the information to officers in the field. "If the 911 call taker does not enter the notes for the call for service, the 911 dispatcher is unaware of the incident, and the call for service will not be dispatched to officers," according to the affidavit.

The investigation of Kennedy was apparently launched following Willingham's arrest on Jan. 16, according to court papers. Willingham had led police on a high-speed chase while behind the wheel of a Chevy Malibu registered to Kennedy. The chase started when Willingham fled from a traffic stop in the 1000 block of Spruce St. and ended when he crashed the Malibu into a telephone pole in the 900 block of E. 12th St. Police said Willingham was wearing body armor and had a loaded .45-caliber handgun and a loaded .22-caliber semi-automatic rifle in the car.

Police also recovered two cellphones from him that revealed the text exchange with "Crook." Investigators then reviewed 911 tapes from Jan. 9 and identified Kennedy's voice on the tapes taking one of the six calls about the shooting that night, according to court papers. A further police review of computer records showed that Kennedy did not enter the information she received from the caller about the location of the shots fired.

A check of Kennedy's cellphone showed she had talked with Willingham both before and after the shooting, according to the affidavit. Kennedy was arrested late Monday and later released on $6,000 secured bond. She faces up to 2½ years in prison if convicted on all charges.

"By court order she is restricted from Wilmington police headquarters," Cpl. Mark Ivey said on Wednesday. "Her status as an employee will be determined by an internal review process."

She is set to be arraigned in New Castle Court of Common Pleas in March. According to court records, Kennedy had been arrested in 2008 and 2011, but both cases were later dropped by prosecutors. A third case, where she was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia from November 2011, remains pending according to court records.

Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Delaware Attorney General's Office, said that Kennedy's possession case has been "continued on multiple occasions" and is still awaiting trial.

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A 37-year-old convicted of stabbing his 29-year-old girlfriend to death will spend his life behind bars in a case that followed her bloody body being found on a Canby Park playground slide in Wilmington in 2015.

Gary Perkins was sentenced to life in prison plus 36 years March 16 by a Superior Court, the Delaware Department of Justice announced Friday.

The victim, Jamie Murphy, was found bloodied with numerous stab wounds, lying at the top of a slide in the Canby Park playground in July 2015.

Murphy, who was mentally disabled, met Perkins, homeless at the time of the killing, at a bus stop near the house where she grew up, according to Murphy's family. The pair had a daughter together and an off-and-on-again relationship, the family said.

Perkins previously had beaten Murphy and stabbed her in the head with a small pocketknife after she said she was going to stop paying for his food in 2013, court documents said.

The day of the murder, Perkins was stopped by police. He was wearing bloody clothes and had a penknife, court documents said.

Perkins was convicted in October of first-degree murder in the case, possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony, possession of a deadly weapon by a person prohibited and criminal contempt in court proceedings.

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The man accused of shooting and killing another inside the Shades of Blue Bar and Lounge in April 2016 took the DJ's mic to offer his victim a birthday shoutout before opening fire, witnesses testified Monday. The comments came as a jury began to hear evidence in the trial of Tyerin Griffin, 36 He is accused of first-degree murder, attempted murder, reckless endangering and weapons charges in the death of Nathaniel Mangrum, 31, inside the bar on Governor Printz Boulevard north of Wilmington. The shooting occurred shortly after midnight and was preceded by tension between Griffin and Mangrum as well as Keivese Tolbert, who went to the bar with Mangrum and was shot twice and survived. Tolbert said he and Mangrum arrived at the bar without knowing Griffin was there. When Tolbert saw the accused shooter, he said he tried to approach him over a disagreement between Griffin and Mangrum. Mangrum held him back, Tolbert said. "I was going to bust his ass," Tolbert told the jury. Other witnesses told the jury that Mangrum had an issue with a birthday party Griffin, a party promoter, had organized for him the week before. Tolbert said security spoke to him and he had settled down to eat some chicken in the bar. That's when witnesses said Griffin took the mic onto the dance floor and wished Mangrum a happy birthday before the music restarted. One witness told the jury they saw the birthday shoutout as a normal gesture. Tolbert said he did not. "I asked him why he is antagonizing us," Tolbert said, adding that he also threatened to "bust the DJ's (butt)" for letting Griffin take the mic. He said he was then "bumped" to the ground and heard two gunshots that hit him. He told the jury he looked up to see Griffin shooting toward the door as he made his way out. Prosecutors showed surveillance video of Griffin and Mangrum entering the lounge. Video inside the bar at the time of the shooting shows a stampede toward the door and a man, who a detective identified as Griffin, firing additional rounds at a man police identified as Mangrum, who was between him and the door. A bartender working that night told the jury she found Mangrum bleeding from wounds to the abdomen and head. A witness who was friends with both victims drove Tolbert to the hospital and testified Monday. On the way, she said Tolbert told her that Griffin was trying to "make amends" but Tolbert "was not going to let him do that." She said Tolbert also identified Griffin as the shooter. Attorney Andrew Witherell, who is representing Griffin, pointed out that Tolbert had previously told police he didn't know who shot them. On the stand Monday, Tolbert said he didn't recall that statement. Griffin faces a life sentence if convicted of first-degree murder. He was identified by police as a suspect shortly after the shooting but did not turn himself in until September 2016. Shortly after he was identified, posts were made on a Facebook page under his name before the account was removed altogether. "A lot of yall think yall know the story but dont," said a post on the Facebook account of Griffin. At the time of the posts, it was unknown whether Griffin was the one who wrote them. "Alot of yall knew what was going on but made no attempt to intervien (sic)," the post went on to say. "All of yall a sitting and watching my family, daughter, mother, girlfriend, sisters lives and friends life get threaten but once again yall don't are not doing anything about that."

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Based on a formal complaint filed by the Attorney General’s Office, Secretary of State Jeffrey Bullock and the President of the Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline, Raymond L. Moore, Sr., this week ordered an emergency suspension of Dr. Timothy Wong’s medical license for committing serious violations of the Delaware Medical Practice Act. The order maintains that Dr. Wong, who has been on licensure probation since March 1, 2011, has engaged in activities which present a clear and immediate danger to the public health. Dr. Wong’s specialty is Family Practice, but he practices mainly pain management.

The Complaint and Motion for Emergency Suspension allege, among other things, that Dr. Wong has continually prescribed controlled substances to patients without conducting proper medical examinations, without creating and maintaining proper records or logs, without ordering tests, without requesting medical records, without contacting patients’ primary care or other treating physicians, without obtaining patients’ informed consent, and with little or no discussion or establishment of any underlying medical or psychiatric basis or need for medication. He also allegedly abandoned hundreds of patient medical files, refused to provide medical records to treating physicians and patients, and falsified patient medical records.

Earlier this month, the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation received a call from a pharmacist in Idaho who expressed his concerns about prescriptions for controlled substances written by Dr. Wong for a resident of Idaho. The complaint against Dr. Wong alleges that, between January 7, 2010 and May 26, 2011, he wrote at least 83 prescriptions for 5,330 tablets of Schedule II and IV controlled substances – an average of five prescriptions and 333 tablets per month – for the Idaho resident without ever conducting a physical examination, without requesting medical records, and without contacting the individual’s other treating physicians.

The Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline had already placed Dr. Wong on licensure probation for at least six months and had ordered him to complete a continuing education course in ethics and medicine which was to include the appropriate prescribing of narcotics. The basis for the probation was the discovery that, as a result of his incompetence and lack of professional judgment, a substantial amount of narcotics had been criminally diverted.

Dr. Wong had written 19 prescriptions for more than 1,500 tablets of controlled substances over a four month period for a patient who was incarcerated in a Delaware prison. He provided the prescriptions to family members to fill, but never followed up to determine if the patient had received them. Dr. Wong continued to write prescriptions for the patient without following up with her or the prison medical staff regarding her care. The patient never received the medications, and the five individuals who filled the prescriptions written by Dr. Wong were criminally charged and pled guilty to obtaining controlled substances by fraud.

In January 2011, investigators from the Division of Professional Regulation served a subpoena on the professional practice at 1201 Philadelphia Pike in Claymont – where Dr. Wong had rented space between October 2007 and February 2008 – for documents related to a formal complaint. At that time, they discovered that Dr. Wong had left behind over 800 patient files. The complaint alleges that Dr. Wong abandoned the files three years earlier.

The State’s complaint filed on June 17, 2011 contends that Dr. Wong did not maintain a medical office but occasionally used an office at 2616 Philadelphia Pike, Suite B, in Claymont.

As a result of them action taken this week, Wong’s status has been updated on the Division of Professional Regulation’s online license verification service. This useful tool lists the status of 71,000 professional licensees in Delaware and can be accessed by visiting dpr.delaware.gov

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In this episode I speak to my best friend @pocasmokya about a bunch of everything and nothing. Also, Anchor gotta do better.

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In this storytime episode I discuss the time my cousin and I stole a car and crashed it twice

www.dyealone.com

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This episode is about the second time I got robbed at gunpoint.

www.dyealone.com

#420

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this episode is a storytime about the first time I was robbed at gunpoint. I also take a nice little dab beforehand.

#420

www.dyealone.com

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In this episode I get drunk with my cousin TK Leo and talk about a bunch of hilarious bullshit

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