Montana trial, day one

 It was a brisk day of testimony for the case involving Winnipeg’s Tim Morneau in a Montana federal court in the small city of Billings.

Prosecutor James Seykora literally blew through a number of key witnesses, including those from U.S. homeland security, border and customs agents and even an RCMP officer from Boissevain.

One question about this whole case has always bothered me – and it was only somewhat broached during today’s hearing.
Where did the drugs come from?

Well, I can tell you this much, so far. The 223,810 individual tablets of ecstacy that Morneau is accused of smuggling into the U.S. using a rickety snowmobile was destined for California, police believe. They had already been purchased by someone in America and weren’t simply going to be peddled on the street by Morneau.

But as far as where Morneau allegedly got them? He’s not talking, much:
Jurors heard the police interview conducted by Jeff Faycosh, a veteran Montana drug investigator who was questioning Morneau and had helped in searching Mulder’s car.

Throughout, Morneau continually denied knowing Mulder and Laurin until confronted by police with the text messages.
"They weren’t really involved," Morneau eventually told Faycosh, but admitted to hiring the two young men. Morneau said they were to be paid $1,000 each from the $5,000 he was being paid for his efforts.

Morneau was cagy with police about where the drugs came from, and had difficulty describing the person who had brokered his involvement in the scheme.

"He didn’t strike me as HA (Hells Angels)," Morneau told police. "He seemed a little too clean-cut for this." He even claimed to not know what a pill of ecstacy sold for on the streets of Winnipeg.

"I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink. I smoke my cigarettes and drink coffee," Morneau said.
He had told them that the drugs were actually meant to be delivered to Utah, but he didn’t know to whom he was going to pass them off to.

Expert testimony given today by special agent Daniel Dunlap of the U.S. drug enforcement agency revealed some surprising facts about ecstacy, also known on the street as XTC, Adam, E, the hug-drug and the love-drug.

Most of the world’s X is made in clandestine labs in the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada, Dunlap said.
The popularity of the drug is rampant among people under age 25, who use it for its dual hallucinogenic and stimulant effects.

It’s like taking cocaine and meth and mescaline at once, Dunlap said.
However, the U.S. considers the drug a ‘schedule 1’ controlled substance, meaning the synthetic drug is at the top of the government’s hit-list when it comes to it’s long and ongoing ‘war on drugs.’

The big concern about ecstacy – also known as MDMA – is that there’s no sense of quality control in how it’s manufactured. Sometimes it’s a placebo, sometimes it’s plain methamphetamine and other times is MDMA mixed with Ketamine, a veterinary anesthetic.

One thing’s for sure: In larger urban markets in the USA, the demand for the drug is so high it’s almost three times the price for a single pill than it is on the streets of Winnipeg.

In America, it can fetch about $45 a pill. Here, it’s about $10.
That means that on the streets of America, the drugs seized by officers in the Montana bust could have fetched more than $10 million.

The pills are made to look colorful and stamped with a logo so users look to find the pill that they like. Looks, Dunlap said, are still deceiving.

"They’re marketing tactics used to market their own products. It looks like candy sometimes," he told the jury.
Dunlap told court today that the drug can be excessively dangerous and harmful to people, invoking what’s called "hyperthermia" – the opposite of the much colder ‘hypothermia.’

Essentially, he said, the body’s temperature gets raised to the point that users can suffer kidney and liver damage from the heat, as well as trigger respiratory distress leading to death.

But will we ever know where the drugs in this Montana case came from? One guy knows, and he’s not at liberty to speak right now.

Other facts about the court hearing today:

Federal Courthouses in this state have the same security as airports. No blackberries, phones. Remove shoes and belts before going through the metal detectors.

Members of the families of Christian Laurin and Alan Mulder - the two 20-year-olds that recently pleaded guilty in exchange for a plea deal with the government are present in court. They sat through the entire day of Morneau's trial today.

The stolen snowmobile allegedly used by Morneau to transport the ecstacy across the border broke down after he got across. The prosecution says it had been stolen from a repair shop in Souris MB in the days prior to the incident that triggered the arrests.

The government has put on display a large map in the courtroom showing the routes and back-trackings allegedly done by the three men as they moved toward getting the drugs across the border. Reciepts seized show that Winnipeg, Headingley, Brandon, Souris, Deloraine, Bottineau and Minot all played a role in the route the men ultimately took. The reciepts begin on Feb 4 and continue to Feb 9, the day of their arrests.

More tomorrow.