Trial Begins for Venango Woman Charged in ‘Operation Flood City Smackdown’

| September 20, 2017

CAMBRIA CO., Pa. (EYT) — A Venango County woman is on trial in Cambria County for allegedly being part of a Johnstown heroin ring that operated in several Pa. counties and in Buffalo.

The state Attorney General’s office is prosecuting the case that has Krista Mader, 28, of Titusville, on trial with two co-defendants, Massai Dickey, 47, of Johnstown; and Ryan Baumgardner, 41, of Johnstown.

The 2016 drug bust was termed “Operation Flood City Smackdown” by the state attorney general’s office.

Mader faces numerous charges, including one count each of criminal use of a communication facility, criminal conspiracy, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity.

Other charges include two counts of corrupt organizations and 14 counts of possession with the intent to deliver a controlled substance (heroin).

According to a story at tribdem.com, the trio were part of a group of 33 people named in a grand jury report that detailed the workings of the ring that agents from the state Office of the Attorney General’s Bureau of Narcotics Investigation, FBI, Cambria County Drug Task Force and local police departments that the state said distributed $2.7 million in heroin in 13 months.

State attorney general narcotics agent Thomas Moore explained how he determined couriers and distributors who worked for Curtis “Dirty” Harper, 44, of Pittsburgh, who authorities targeted as the alleged head of the organization.

The investigation found the ring reached into Allegheny, Indiana, Somerset, Blair, Cambria, Huntingdon, and Erie counties and to Buffalo, New York, officials say.

Officials say Harper created a base out of a Derby Street apartment in Johnstown and that much of the organization’s local heroin deals were done at two apartments in the Solomon Homes.

It is alleged that Harper would position his dealers at a specific residence, supply them with bricks of heroin and then direct buyers to the residence by telephone.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Leonard, who is prosecuting the case, on Monday played for jurors phone calls between Harper and a confidential informant arranging one deal in the Moxham section of Johnstown in January 2016, during which the informant purchased a brick of heroin stamped “Close Range.”

Although the confidential informant then testified that he arranged the purchase with Harper, it was Mader who sold him the drugs in exchange for the money provided to him by agents, according to the confidential informant.


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