Drug Trafficking Conspiracy Indictment Expanded

ANCHORAGE—United States Attorney Karen L. Loeffler announced today, January 26, 2012, that on January 20, 2012, an Anchorage grand jury expanded a previously charged drug trafficking conspiracy involving Kostas Nikolaos Bairamis, Melissa Dawn Cue, BJ Griffith, William Gilbert, and Justin Clayton Ray Lane to charge three additional defendants: Homer resident Timothy Daniel Cissney, age 33; Christopher Sean Kendrick, age 36, from California; and Aaron O’Kito Dyson, aka “Punchy,” age 37, from Washington. The indictment alleges one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C).

According to the indictment presented to the court, defendants conspired to distribute oxycodone and methadone between at least June 17, 2010, and October 5, 2010. Bairamis has been convicted of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine during a different time period and has been sentenced to served 11 years on that separate charge. Both Cue and Griffith have been previously indicted by a grand jury in the District of Nevada. Those charges remain pending.

Assistant United States Attorney Kimberly Sayers-Fay, who presented the case to the grand jury, advised that the maximum penalties for conspiring to distribute oxycodone and methadone are 20 years’ imprisonment, a $1,000,000 fine, three years’ supervised release, and a $100 special assessment.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Alaska State Troopers conducted the investigation the led to the indictments in this case.

An indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which the government must prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.