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Documents: Cash linked to suspect

J.D. Sumner

ALBANY — MACON — Indictments filed by a federal grand jury this week against four defendants in what prosecutors have labeled a 1000-plant marijuana conspiracy, show that prosecutors have linked at least $360,000 in cash to the man named as a ringleader of the operation.

Thursday, Frank Spring, Michael Dean Slaymaker, Riley Trae McDaniel and Ed Thomas “Trey” Fulford, III, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Macon for their suspected roles in a multi-million dollar drug manufacturing operation that spanned three Southeastern states.

In those indictments, which were made available Friday, Spring, Slaymaker and McDaniel are charged with cultivating more than 1000 marijuana plants beginning as early as January 2006, court documents show.

Fulford, who had previously been indicted for hindering the government’s investigation into the operation, was saddled with a superseding indictment charging him additionally with perjury after prosecutors contend he lied in court when he said he had no knowledge that two separate named suspects were operating a marijuana grow operation in Dawson, the indictment says.

Testifying before a grand jury Dec. 4, prosecutors say that Fulford denied having knowledge of a grow operation at Cinderella Lane in Dawson, but was tape recorded having a conversation with a confidential witness during which he said that he knew about the operation and that he told the suspects to dismantle the operation to avoid detection by investigators, the indictment claims.

According to the indictments, the federal government is moving to seize all assets derived from the operation. For Spring, who was labeled after his arrest in July 2007 as the common thread among the co-conspirators by local law enforcement, that means the seizure of more than $360,000 in cash, and an unknown amount of personal property, the indictment shows.

The government has also made strides to seize property from Slaymaker and McDaniel, documents show.

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