Another Defendant Pleads Guilty to Offering Drug Paraphernalia for Sale at Treasure Valley Business

BOISE—United States Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced today that Thomas Wayne Blumke, 38, of Horseshoe Bend, Idaho, pled guilty in federal court to one count of offering drug paraphernalia for sale at Other World Gallery, LLC, a business located at 108 South 11th Street in Boise. Crystal Blumke, the defendant’s wife, pled guilty to the same charge on September 5.

Thomas Blumke is scheduled to be sentenced on December 10, 2012, before Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill at the federal courthouse in Boise. His wife will be sentenced on November 15.

The Blumkes and five others pled guilty to the charge of offering drug paraphernalia for sale over the past two months and are awaiting sentencing: Gabriel Adam Busby and Bradley Berquist, co-owners of Twenty After, on November 1 and November 13, respectively; Yoke Fee Chan, owner and operator of Royal Smoke, on November 13; Janet Shirley, owner and operator of All Sunshine, LLC, and Antonio Mendoza, an employee of All Sunshine, LLC, on November 15; and Adam Daniel Schreiner, owner/operator of Bernen’s Pipe Shop, LLC, on December 4.

These seven defendants are among the 16 charged last May as part of Operation Not for Human Consumption, which targeted illegal sales of drug paraphernalia at 13 Treasure Valley businesses.

It is against federal law to sell or offer for sale any paraphernalia that is primarily intended or designed for drug use, regardless of whether the seller advises their customers that the paraphernalia is for tobacco use only. The businesses are commonly referred to as “headshops.”

Operation Not for Human Consumption includes the cooperative law enforcement efforts of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, Boise Police Department, Ada County Sheriff’s Office, Canyon County Sheriff’s Office, Nampa Police Department, Meridian Police Department, and the Canyon County Prosecutor’s Office. The U.S. Marshals Service and Idaho State Police provided assistance in arresting the 16 defendants.