PRIEST RIVER COUPLE SENTENCED FOR MONEY LAUNDERING

John “Phil” Keyser and Texanna Keyser, 67, of Priest River, Idaho, were sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise, Idaho, for conspiracy to launder money. Phil Keyser was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison. Texanna was sentenced to 3 months in federal prison and 7 months home detention. The Keysers will also forfeit properties totaling $875,000, which reflects property illegally obtained by the Keysers. The Keyser’s son, Jerod Keyser, a mortgage broker from Priest River, Idaho, was sentenced in March 2009 to 8 months in federal prison and 8 months home detention for his role in the money laundering.

The Keysers admitted that they knowingly received and laundered the drug proceeds of Kent Jones and Robert Long. The drug proceeds were commingled with legitimately obtained monies and laundered through various transactions, including the sale, purchase and reconveyance of the Village Kitchen restaurant in Priest River, Idaho, the purchase of Raptorview Estates in Priest River, Idaho, and the purchase of Mountain Meadow Estates in Pend Oreille County, Washington.

The Jones organization, which had been identified as a Regional Priority Target by the Federal Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), operated throughout the United States, importing drugs from Mexico and Southern California. The drugs were typically transported to the Portland, Oregon area before being shipped to Idaho, Washington, and other places in the mid-west and east coast, including the states of Colorado, Ohio, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, and New York. In addition to the importation and transportation of marijuana, the group was heavily involved in growing large quantities of marijuana in Oregon in the 1990s, both indoors and on public lands.

The organization allegedly had its origins in a group of high school friends from Days Creek, Oregon, with other friends and family members added over the years. The group’s early activities centered around growing and selling marijuana, but they later expanded to include smuggling large quantities of drugs from Mexico and Southern California.

The OCDETF investigation was handled by the District of Idaho because it stemmed from the case of a major drug trafficker, Leland Lang of Stites, Idaho, who was successfully prosecuted in Idaho in 2002. The Jones organization supplied Lang with large quantities of drugs which were distributed in Idaho and various mid-west and eastern states. Over one million dollars in currency was seized from Lang’s mountaintop residence in Stites in 2002. Lang is currently serving a 9.5 year sentence in federal prison.

Agencies involved in the investigation and arrests include IRS Criminal Investigation, the Idaho State Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Douglas County Interagency Narcotics Team, Oregon Department of Justice, Oregon State Police, the U.S. Marshals Service, Westside Interagency Narcotics Team, the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office, Pacific Northwest Fugitive Task Force and Southwest Washington Regional SWAT Team. The OCDETF program is a federal multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional task force which supplies supplemental federal funding to federal and state agencies involved in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of major drug trafficking organizations.