Bill Morlin

A hallucinogenic drug rarely seen in Spokane was intercepted in the mail by federal investigators who later made two arrests and seized $100,000 worth of crack cocaine. Nathanial James Smith and Robert Charles Getchell, both 19, are scheduled to appear at a detention hearing today before U.S. Magistrate Cynthia Imbrogno.

Four people involved with a Columbia Basin custom meatcutting firm and an Othello dairy farm are accused in a 36-count federal indictment of slaughtering and selling uninspected meat. The 5,384 pounds of meat came from diseased or injured dairy cows and was sold to retail customers, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice said Wednesday.

A threatening note demands removal of a reward in the unsolved bombings and bank robberies earlier this year in the Spokane Valley. If the reward isn't rescinded, the note - signed by a white supremacist sect - threatens retaliation, making a biblical reference to destruction by fire.

People who commit federal firearms violations in the Eastern District of Washington are much more likely to get prosecuted than elsewhere, a private study suggests. The district ranks fourth per capita in cases referred for prosecution between 1992 and 1995, according to the study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Elton

The Society of Professional Journalists is protesting the FBI's use of an informant who posed as a reporter in Spokane. In a letter sent Wednesday to FBI Director Louis Freeh, SPJ President G. Kelly Hawes urges the agency to adopt a policy forbidding the use of agents or informants who pose as reporters. Similar criticism came from Jane Kirtley, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

An FBI informer who posed as a newspaper reporter was arrested Tuesday at the Spokane County Courthouse on a charge of destroying campaign signs. David H. Elton III was booked into jail on a bench warrant after he was spotted in a private office area of the county commissioners, authorities said. The warrant alleges Elton failed to show up in court to face a charge of destroying signs last fall, jail records showed.

David Elton

1. Dora Vaux checks sperm samples stored in a vat of liquid nitrogen. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review 2. The foundation's office is in a former bank building. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

FBI agents are checking if there's a link between a Western Washington explosives ring and unsolved bombings and bank robberies in Spokane. No firm connections are known, but the possibility hasn't been eliminated, FBI officials said Monday. Nine suspects, including four members of the Washington State Militia, are under arrest in Seattle on federal conspiracy and explosive charges. The arrests occurred Saturday afternoon while the suspects were attending a bomb-making class in Bellingham, said Burdena Pasenelli, FBI special agent in charge.

FBI agents - stymied in their investigation of a bombing and robbery in the Spokane Valley two weeks ago today - are asking an anonymous caller to get in touch with them. The woman told authorities that at least one suspect may have been casing another U.S. Bank branch in north Spokane, investigators confirmed Thursday.

Cavanaugh

Pastor Richard Butler, center, addresses the media Friday as the Aryan World Congress begins. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review (Photo appeared in Idaho edition only)

(photo of police sketch)

An "unprecedented reward" of $115,000 is being offered to anyone who helps solve two Spokane Valley bank robberies and their companion bombings. Authorities announced the bounty Wednesday and noted it is being offered because of the "severe and adverse impact" the crimes have had on the region.

1. Two gunmen rob the Sprague and Mullan branch of U.S.Bank on Friday. A propane tank that may have been rigged to explode sits near one of the robbers. Photo courtesy U.S.Bank 2. Debris litters the entryway to the Planned Parenthood clinic in the Valley. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

Two fugitive members of a notorious Midwestern outlaw motorcycle gang are in custody after separate arrests in eastern and western Washington. Jeffrey "No Mind" Gruber, 38, and Robert "Bronc" McAlister, 42, are wanted in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on federal racketeering charges. The pair have been sought since November 1994.

Criminal charges are being dismissed against the ailing leader of a large Spokane Gypsy family because he can't aid in his own defense. Grover Marks, 68, suffered a debilitating stroke in late May, about three weeks after he and eight members of his extended family were indicted. The federal indictment accuses Marks family members of obstructing justice and tampering with witnesses in a civil case against the city of Spokane.

A former Eastern Washington University geology professor pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges of using a university computer to obtain child pornography. Russell C. Boggs, 43, of Cheney pleaded guilty to possession and receipt of child porn. As part of a plea bargain, the U.S. attorney's office agreed to seek dismissal of 121 other receipt-of-pornography charges.

The former president of the Ghost Riders motorcycle gang was acquitted Friday of burglary in a case loosely tied to a recent Hells Angels murder trial. It took a Superior Court jury less than two hours on Friday to find Kenneth "Maggot" Fisette innocent of the burglary charge. He is scheduled to stand trial in Superior Court again Monday on a second, unrelated charge of first-degree burglary.

A Spokane businessman pleaded guilty Wednesday to growing commercial quantities of marijuana so he could funnel profits into his failing white-water rafting business. David C. Jeffries admitted growing 100-200 marijuana plants in a locked crawl space beneath his family home at 508 E. Maxine in north Spokane. He since has lost his business inventory and may lose his home, in addition to facing a possible jail sentence.

Sexually explicit photographs of a 3-year-old Spokane girl were traded for pornographic videos of children in a deal set up through an on-line computer service, federal authorities say. The case was developed by an Alabama police detective who uses a commercial computer service chat line to find pedophiles, court documents say. Bryan F. Bluett, 30, who lived with friends at Fairchild Air Force Base, was arrested Thursday on federal charges by U.S. Customs and Postal Service inspectors and sheriff's detectives.

Kenneth Fisette

A nationwide child-pornography investigation by U.S. postal inspectors has led to the indictment of a Spokane appliance parts salesman. John W. Brady, 48, is scheduled to surrender voluntarily to federal authorities July 1 after being indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury. Brady faces two counts - receipt of child pornography by U.S. mail and possession of child pornography, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Johnson.