Cop-killer Maurice Clemmons played the suspected pivot in a drug-dealing network investigated by the U.S. Postal Service and Auburn police between 2005 and 2009.
Clemmons never faced charges linked to the investigation.
He was thought to be a lesser figure in the network. Investigators never obtained the definitive evidence they needed to justify a criminal charge, said Jerry Styers, postal inspector in the agency’s Seattle division.
"He was doing bad stuff through the mail when he had the stuff, and it was going back and forth," Styers said Thursday. "We did see things going back and forth from him in packages that we believed to be narcotics. We couldn't hit on it."
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The mail traveled between Washington and South Dakota, Styers said. The packages contained marijuana, possibly routed from Canada. Members of the ring used the Postal Service as well as private mailing companies.
"Our theory on it is that drugs were going to South Dakota and money or contraband was coming back, which is usually the way they do it," Styers said
The apparent ties to Clemmons surfaced in 2005, when investigators spotted a suspicious package sent to an address in Federal Way tied to Clemmons. The return address was in South Dakota, linked to another individual believed to be the key figure in the network.
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