Junkman: Snitch for the feds

Thrift-store owner known as 'Doc' bought guns and drugs in federal sting operation.

Date published: 10/29/2006

By LARRY OAKES

STAR TRIBUNE

MINNEAPOLIS--In retrospect, say people in Warroad, Minn., it's not surprising that "Doc" the junkman was actually a professional snitch.

"He left just as suddenly as he came," Jackie Bengtson, owner of Main Street Bar & Grill, said. "We didn't feel creeped out by him, but he was a shady character."

Doc--the only name he gave most people--breezed into the bar several times a day last summer for a Dewar's and water before returning to his rented secondhand shop, Bengtson said. The balding, 55-ish newcomer opened Doc's Superthrift Store in the former Hardware Hank building last May and stayed in business four months.

Outwardly, he bought and sold what local grocer Steve Hagen described as "stuff you would find at a garage sale."

But Doc also had a back room, police say, where he peeled bills off of a wad of federal Drug Enforcement Administration cash to buy drugs and guns from townsfolk who allegedly were on the wrong side of the law.

The "buy room" was fitted by police with hidden cameras and microphones wired to a hidden "monitoring site" less than a block away, police said.

"We suspected [illegal] things were going on over there, but we thought he was the one doing them," Bengtson said.

What he actually was doing became clear this past week when 63 law enforcement officers from 10 agencies swarmed the town of 1,700 and arrested 42 people. Eleven more are wanted on warrants.

"Most of them immediately denied that they had done anything," said Warroad Police Chief Robert Cudaback. "Then we showed them the complaints describing what we had on the recordings and their mouths just dropped."

Roseau County Sheriff Jule Hanson said the operation yielded some illegally traded firearms and "a large quantity" of methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana and prescription narcotics.

Those charged ranged in age from 17 to mid-50s and included a father and his adult daughter and a mother and her adult son, said County Attorney Michelle Moren. Several defendants' children were placed with relatives or in foster care, Moren said.

Cudaback said that authorities organized the sting with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Paul Bunyan Gang and Drug Task Force after they became concerned about a rise in drug-related crimes.

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Date published: 10/29/2006