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Man pleads innocent in drug case
Photo
Harold Travis
By ED RUNYAN
WARREN
A former Detroit man has pleaded innocent to a 13-count indictment that calls him “one of the major players” in a heroin and cocaine operation raided Sept. 15 on West Market Street.
If convicted, Harold Travis, 41, could serve more than 50 years in prison.
A Trumbull County grand jury refused to indict seven of the 10 people who were arrested the day of the raid, though a county assistant prosecutor said cases against the seven could be presented to a grand jury again later “depending on how things work out.”
Lt. Jeff Orr, commander of the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Law Enforcement Task Force, said Travis was not arrested the day of the raid because he uses a wheelchair and has other health problems that would have required expensive medical care.
Travis is in the Trumbull County Jail now, though, in lieu of $100,000 bond. He makes his next court appearance today.
Travis’ indictment accuses him of first-degree felony charges of possessing crack cocaine and heroin and aggravated possession of drugs. He also is charged with lesser drug offenses including heroin trafficking and a specification that he is a “major drug offender.”
Mike Burnett, assistant county prosecutor, said Travis is one of the bigger drug dealers arrested in recent years.
Orr said the major-drug-offender specification is applicable in this case because Travis was the person bringing the drugs into the area, and he possessed a larger quantity of drugs than the others.
Travis’ indictment, which was issued in secret April 15, says he possessed cocaine, heroin, morphine, codeine, alprazolam, oxycodone, phenobarbital, hydromorphone and lorezepam, some in bulk amounts.
Orr said Travis, who uses a wheelchair because of being shot in Detroit several years ago, was “the specific target” of the drug raid. Travis rented the house near Nevada Street house under a false name.
After a monthlong investigation that included undercover drug buys, police raided the house and recovered drugs, $10,500 in cash, 10 guns and a bulletproof vest. About 16 pit bulls — half were adult dogs and half were puppies — also were found in the house and were euthanized later at the Trumbull County Dog Pound.
Travis’ indictment says he was convicted in 1998 in Wayne County, Mich., of drug abuse.
Orr said the house was a “large [drug] distribution point with a lot of people coming and going all hours of the day.” Three juvenile girls also were arrested.
Travis is related to one of the men police arrested Sept. 15, Michael A. Travis, 30, who was shot to death in January behind a house on Washington Street Northeast where neighbors have complained repeatedly about drug dealing and prostitution.
No arrests have been made in the case.