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veggie
Reged: 07/25/04
Posts: 6079
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'Captain America' of ecstasy sentenced
01/04/06 11:15 PM
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'Captain America' of ecstasy sentenced
January 5, 2006 - ajc.com
They imported ecstasy using vacuum-sealed bags strapped inside the clothing of airline passengers, stowed away on Russian cargo ships and hidden inside secret furniture compartments in shipments originating in Copenhagen,, Denmark.
All told, the ecstasy ring headed by Stephen Ashley House brought in more than 1.5 million pills of the illicit, mood-enhancing hallucinogenic drug. On Thursday, House, 35, of Kennesaw was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison for overseeing an organization that led investigators on an international trail of drug smuggling through the Netherlands, Canada, Germany and Denmark.
House became the 18th person sentenced in the case. He oversaw a meticulous organization that smuggled hundreds of thousands of ecstasy pills from Amsterdam to Atlanta. The organization began in 1997 and ended in 2001, after Congress enacted laws greatly enhancing punishment for ecstasy importation and distribution.
"He made a shocking amount of money trafficking these ecstasy pills — millions of dollars, if not tens of millions of dollars," Assistant U.S. Attorney John Horn said. "This case is probably the biggest ecstasy importation and distribution case the Southeast has ever seen, certainly the biggest Atlanta and Georgia have ever seen."
House was arrested in January 2003 by Spanish police under a U.S. warrant in Malaga, a resort town on the Mediterranean coast where he had fled from federal authorities.
In the 1990s, House was working at Cumberland Mall when he began hanging out in Buckhead and drinking and using drugs, his lawyer, Ed Garland, said Thursday. He began selling ecstasy to pay for his habit and eventually found a supplier in Amsterdam.
From there, House's organization made a mint from the surge in popularity of ecstasy by club-going teens and adults in the late 1990s.
"Ashley House was a household name in the city of Atlanta to people who trafficked in ecstasy," Horn said. "He was known as 'Captain America' in Amsterdam because the suppliers there couldn't figure out how he was getting so much ecstasy into the city of Atlanta and not getting arrested."
House first used couriers who got ecstasy pills in Amsterdam and smuggled them on flights from Europe to Florida, before bringing them into Atlanta. Depending on their size, couriers, using vaccum-sealed bags strapped to their bodies, could smuggle in 10,000 to 40,000 pills each.
The ring then used Russian cargo and fishing boats to bring in shipments of ecstasy pills.
Some bags, which had radio honing beacons, were dropped off in the Canadian waters and later picked up by members of House's organization, Horn said. Later, the ring stuffed ecstasy pills into hidden compartments of furniture shipped from Denmark.
The ecstasy pills were smuggled across the Canadian border into the United States inside spare tires of cars driven by couriers.
Before handing down House's sentence, U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash heard pleas for mercy from House's parents and friends. House told the judge he has turned his life around. "Being arrested helped me stop running from my fears and face the past," he said.
House faced a prison sentence of 24 to 30 years in prison. But Thrash approved a motion by Horn to reduce the sentence based on his cooperation with the government since his arrest.
He may get more time cut off his sentence if he continues to provide substantial cooperation with the government, Thrash said.
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