Another charge for drug dealer

The drug dealer caught peddling cocaine out of a rental house owned by a Spokane police officer is headed to prison.

Dennis “DJ” Jones, who generated many of the drug-house complaints made for more than two years by West Central neighbors, pleaded guilty Monday to another drug charge.

Jones, 50, was given a sentence of six months in prison. That term will run at the same time as the minimum of 5½ years he’s facing after a jury convicted him two weeks ago of selling drugs out of the rental house at 112 W. Montgomery Ave.

Jones’ conviction ended a bitter chapter for Montgomery Avenue neighbors, said developer Marshall Clark, who owns a building and business across the street.

“It was a terrible two-and-a-half years,” Clark said. “I still can’t get any contact from the owner.”

According to county records, the rental property is owned by officer James Jay Olsen. Efforts to reach Olsen were unsuccessful Monday.

In an interview last September with The Spokesman-Review, Jones denied selling drugs and alleged that the complaints from Clark and others were racially motivated.

“I don’t need to sell drugs to make a living. I’ve got my own money,” Jones said at the time. “Just because I am one black man who has something, they think I’m selling drugs.”

According to court records, Spokane Police Department detectives had arrested Jones two weeks earlier when they sent a confidential informant to purchase drugs at the house, which is within 1,000 feet of Garfield Elementary School. But he wasn’t booked into jail.

Documents on that arrest were kept confidential by police despite pleas from neighbors and others to crack down on drug dealing. It wasn’t until Nov. 1, when formal charges were filed against Jones, that the investigation was disclosed.

Jones was selling drugs from an apartment rented by Ginger Ferris. In an interview with The Spokesman-Review last fall, she denied knowing that Jones had three previous drug convictions or was selling drugs.

Ferris later testified at Jones’ trial as a character witness, Deputy Prosecutor Shane Smith said.

Smith said police detectives had attempted to make Jones into a confidential informant after his Sept. 6 arrest, which is why there was no record of the arrest until later.

Jones previously had agreed to plead guilty to the distribution charges stemming from the rental house, but he backed out of the deal, Smith said.

Detective Jeff Barrington then set up another purchase and arrested Jones again Jan. 26 for possession of crack cocaine, according to court records.

Superior Court Judge Ellen Kalama Clark asked Jones if he had anything to say.

“There’s really not much I can say other than I need to do the time,” he said.