State v. Overton
| Decision Date | 21 December 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 818SC1244,818SC1244 |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Paul OVERTON, Jr., James Warren Smedley, Luchai Ruviwat, and Atha Atkinson. |
Atty. Gen. Rufus L. Edmisten by Asst. Attys. Gen. Joan H. Byers and Francis W. Crawley, Raleigh, for the State.
Dees, Dees, Smith, Powell & Jarrett by Tommy W. Jarrett, Goldsboro, for defendant-appellant Overton.
C. Branson Vickory, Mount Olive, for defendant-appellant Smedley.
Malone, Brown & Matthewson, P.A. by Glennie M. Matthewson, II, Durham, for defendant-appellant Ruviwat.
Hulse & Hulse by Herbert B. Hulse, Goldsboro, for defendant-appellant Atkinson.
The State's evidence at trial tended to show the historical development of a complex and lucrative scheme of drug smuggling which began in the mid-1960's. 2 The following summary sketches representative activities of the conspiracy which the State's evidence tended to show and focuses on the particular involvements of the four defendants who have appealed their convictions.
In the mid-1960's, in Bangkok, Thailand, three retired military personnel, Herman Jackson, Leslie "Ike" Atkinson (husband of defendant Atha Atkinson and hereinafter referred to as Ike Atkinson) and James Smedley, and a Thai national named Luchai Ruviwat became acquainted. In May 1967, Jackson, Smedley, Ruviwat, and another friend went into business together, owning and operating Jack's American Star Bar, a Bangkok hangout for American military personnel. In 1968, Ike Atkinson and Jackson began smuggling heroin from Thailand to the United States. Jackson was primarily responsible for shipments from Thailand. In this country, Ike Atkinson would receive and distribute the heroin and also collect and distribute the proceeds of sales. Jackson estimated that, from 1968 until January 1972, he was involved in ten or eleven heroin shipments which went to such places as a National Guard Armory in Philadelphia, Walter Reed Medical Facility in Washington, D.C., and Monmouth, New Jersey.
Various servicemen were involved in the venture. In 1969, Robert Patterson, using his position as postal clerk, mailed packages of heroin to New Jersey. Later James McArthur, an administrative postal clerk, replaced Patterson in the mailing of heroin. Both Ike Atkinson and Jackson actively recruited military personnel for the venture. On at least one occasion in mid-1970, Jackson received four or five kilos from Ruviwat, which he directed to Freddie Clay Thornton, a member of the United States Air Force. In early 1971, Thornton, while returning from Thailand, concealed in the nose of a military aircraft an AWOL bag containing five kilos of heroin, and in July 1971, he returned from Thailand to Travis Air Force Base in California with two boxes of heroin.
According to Thornton's testimony, there was no drug traffic "from after 1971 until sometimes in 1974." In 1972, however, Jackson was arrested when twenty pounds of heroin were seized in Colorado. He was convicted and imprisoned in Leavenworth, Kansas, and, at the time of this trial, remained a federal prisoner.
There was other evidence tending to show that sometime in 1973, Ike Atkinson initiated drug shipments to the U.S. by In February 1974, Thornton was sent back for another military tour in Thailand. In the summer of that year, defendant Smedley asked Thornton to get leave and return to the U.S. Thornton arranged a thirty day leave to attend school, picked up AWOL bags from Smedley, and checked them on his flight back to the U.S. Thornton delivered the bags to Goldsboro and, while there, arranged for a friend to accept and handle future shipments of heroin he was to make through military flight crew chiefs.
concealing[60 N.C.App. 8] heroin inside furniture. Patterson conceived the idea of placing false bottoms on furniture and suggested it to Ike Atkinson by letter. Ike Atkinson hired a carpenter from this country to go to Thailand to put a "professional finishing touch" to the furniture. Meanwhile, the more conventional methods for smuggling continued. In June 1974, defendant Smedley approached Patterson and paid him $6,000 to carry AWOL bags containing heroin to the U.S. On 20 June 1974, Patterson delivered the bags to defendant Atha Atkinson who, with her daughter, met Patterson at the Holiday Inn in Goldsboro. Atha Atkinson paid Patterson $6,000. Also in the time period 1973-74, Vernon Lucas, who lived in New Jersey, began to work for Ike Atkinson. He mailed boxes containing as much as $70,000 to Bangkok; he personally delivered thousands of dollars to Thailand; through the mail he received heroin which he turned over to his brother Frank Lucas for distribution in New York; and he flew at least twice to the Cayman Islands to put money in a bank.
Meanwhile, in Bangkok, in October 1974, Smedley continued his activities by delivering to William Wright a package containing $10,000 which was eventually picked up from Wright by Herbert Houston. Houston, a sergeant in the Air Force, worked with James McArthur in the air post office in downtown Bangkok and had begun mailing packages of heroin for McArthur shortly after August 1974.
After returning to Thailand from his education leave, Thornton went to SOI 53 where he observed the packing of heroin into furniture being shipped to the U.S. by Ike Atkinson. Among those present was William Wright. The shipment being prepared was known as the "Brown Shipment," a soldier by the name of Brown having agreed to ship the heroin to Augusta, Ga. with his household goods. For the Brown shipment, fifty kilos of heroin were purchased from defendant Ruviwat. Later a "Myrick" shipment of 52 kilos was arranged by Thornton, who, with Jackson in prison, had become Ike Atkinson's major representative in the transactions being initiated in Thailand.
The illicit drug activities proliferated in the period beginning in 1974. Apparently, at about the same time the Brown shipment was being prepared, Smedley himself was arranging a shipment concealed in furniture. Also during this period, Thornton had activated his plan to ship heroin by military flight crew chiefs; for this purpose, he purchased heroin from Smedley for shipments in November and December 1974.
Although there was ample evidence that, throughout the conspiracy period, shipments of heroin were successfully being delivered to places within the United States, the evidence concerning drug activities in North Carolina focused on the mid- to late-1970's. Sometime in the early part of 1975, Laura Holmes Smith started working with Ike Atkinson, allowing him, Ronnie, Buster, and Dallas Atkinson to use her home in Goldsboro to package and store heroin. In June 1975, Ike Atkinson, having been convicted on federal drug charges, entered the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. Before he left, he asked Smith to keep the heroin, but to allow Atha Atkinson to purchase relatively small bags of the drug. In fact Atha Atkinson did purchase about four or five bags, each containing about one ounce of heroin.
In prison, Ike Atkinson was reunited with Herman Jackson who had been transferred from Leavenworth. With help from associates, they were able to keep the drug smuggling business alive. In August 1975, Sharon Atkinson Arrington, daughter of Ike and The chief messenger for Ike Atkinson and Jackson during their incarceration was Laura Smith. In 1976, Ike Atkinson was returned to North Carolina, placed in the Wake County jail and tried again. Herman Jackson also was moved to the jail. After seeing both Ike Atkinson and Jackson, and following their directions, Smith received some heroin from Dallas Atkinson, repackaged it, and delivered it to Harry Terrell at the Howard Johnson Motor Inn in Smithfield. Thereafter Smith had five or six meetings with Terrell in various places in North Carolina and Maryland. Smith estimated that she received from Terrell approximately one million dollars for heroin delivered to him.
Atha Atkinson, delivered several messages from her imprisoned father to Freddie Thornton. One message put Thornton in charge of the entire operation in Thailand. However, shortly afterwards, in September, Thornton was arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and was returned to the U.S. where he feigned cooperation and was eventually released. In October, Thornton retrieved the Brown Shipment in Augusta, Georgia and delivered it to Michael and Sharon Arrington at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro.
During the summer of 1976, Atha Atkinson told George Wynn, a Goldsboro native also involved in the Ike Atkinson organization, that somewhere in Johnston County, Dallas and Buster Jack Atkinson and Pearl and Ed...
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