Last week, local authorities arrested a man who was dealing illegal drugs out of his vehicle, and they seized approximately $114,000 worth of drugs (street value) and $52,000 cash in the process.
“We are glad to work together with the sheriff’s office to get these drugs off the street and keep our community a safe place to live,” Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell said.
“Yes, I am so happy that we are finally able to work alongside the Eatonton Police Department to catch these criminals,” Putnam Sheriff’s Lt. Harry Luke added.
The two lawmen made the arrest around 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 5, after jointly investigating the case for several months, they said.
The dealer was selling drugs from his GMC Yukon Denali parked on the 400 block of East Marion Street in downtown Eatonton.
Luke said when they went to make the arrest, customers were literally waiting their turn to buy drugs.
“They were standing off to the side or to the back, and as soon as one made their purchase and started walking away, another one would start walking up,” he said. “He had a lot of business going with them literally waiting in line, which we knew they would be according to our previous surveillance because it was the first week of the month and a lot of people get their checks then.”
When Luke and Cardwell walked up to the vehicle, the first thing they saw was digital scales on the console of the pickup truck, and inside the console, they found stacks of dollar bills “organized like a cash drawer, with plenty of $10s stacked in one place, $20s stacked in another, and $50s and $100s stacked in another place,” Luke described.
They arrested Richie Solomon Burke, 50, of Stribling Street, Eatonton, on charges of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, and trafficking in illegal drugs: marijuana, cocaine, MDMA (a.k.a. ecstasy/molly), or oxycodone, according to jail reports.
During their investigation, they learned that Burke would drive an older model Chevrolet Impala over to a place on Stribling Street, known as “the Buzzard Roost,” which they learned was the location of the house in which he lived.
Luke said Burke is a registered sex offender, but he used a Horton Drive address for that registry.
“He told me that Sheriff Sills told him he couldn’t live on Stribling Street because he is a registered sex offender and it’s too close to the elementary school; so he used his daughter’s house as his address, but he was actually living on Stribling Street,” Luke said.
Burke would drive the Impala with the drugs to his parked pickup on East Marion Street.
After making the arrests, authorities found four pounds of marijuana, 200 grams of ecstasy, and half a kilo of cocaine in the vehicles along with $2,000 cash in the Denali and another $50,000 in the Impala.
At the Stribling Street residence, they found a Weatherby 7mm magnum rifle that had been stolen 20 years ago from a house in Eatonton; it was spray painted white.
“I knew that he had already served 10 years in federal prison for dealing cocaine in the past,” Luke said. “So, I asked him why he didn’t work a real job instead of selling drugs. He told me he was in a wreck a couple of years ago and couldn’t work and SSI didn’t pay enough.”
Sheriff Sills said Burke “is a typical recidivist” who has at least four prior felony convictions.
According to the sheriff, Burke was convicted in 1991, 1998, and 2010 for selling cocaine. He served 10 years in a federal penitentiary after the ’98 conviction.
He also was convicted in 2010 for child molestation, for which he served five years incarcerated and was sentenced to 10 additional years on probation.
“He’s another one of our Great American Criminals,” Sills said. “He’s a prime example of how crime pays because they don’t get punished, a classic example of the same people committing the same crimes over and over again.”
Luke said the U.S. Attorney’s office in Macon has already been notified, and federal authorities will prosecute the case.