An attorney for a Snowmass Village man indicted on drug charges filed a motion Monday aiming to expose the identity of a confidential informant who was paid to go undercover for federal investigators as part of a year-long probe into an alleged cocaine network from Aspen to Los Angeles.
Monday was the motions deadline for the remaining defendants arrested earlier this year as part of a drug sweep by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Sixteen motions were filed in the U.S. District Court in Denver, along with a notice of disposition for Aspen resident Joan Anastasi, 67, who pleaded not guilty in June to cocaine charges. Anastasi’s attorney, James Jenkins of Boulder, declined to discuss the nature of the disposition.
With Anastasi’s case tentatively settled, three of the six local defendants remain on course for February’s scheduled trial — Jack Fellner, 61, and 65-year-olds Christopher Sheehan and Wayne Reid. The three were among 10 people a federal grand jury out of Denver indicted April 19. Nine of the 10 were arrested exactly one month later, on May 19. Two of the four California defendants also have reached dispositions, while one of them remains a fugitive.
Now Sheehan’s lawyer, Ariel Z. Benjamin of Denver, wants the name of the DEA’s confidential source who linked Sheehan and Reid to be revealed, and “requests the Government to disclose the identity and whereabouts of confidential Government informant whose testimony the Government intends to offer at the trial or who utilized during the instant case investigation,” reads a motion.
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This story has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to an error, it was reported that Aspen resident Joan Anastasi, 67, pleaded guilty in June to cocaine charges. That has been corrected to reflect Anastasi pleaded not guilty.
