Drug sting defendants make their way through court system separately

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Two down, two to go. So far, two people have been sentenced in a case involving an undercover drug sting operation June 29 that resulted in the arrest of four people involved in the sale of crack cocaine.

On July 1, Tiago Antonio Gilbert, 19, and Henry Yakima Thinelk, 24, both from the Twin Cities area, and local residents Amanda Verle Reynolds, 20, and Little Fawn Fohrenkam, 28, were charged with controlled substance crime in the third degree (felony sale of a narcotic drug), while Gilbert and Thinelk had additional charges of crime committed for the benefit of a gang.

According to the criminal complaint, subsequent police investigation revealed that Gilbert and Thinelk are allegedly members of the “21st Street Boys,” a Native American metro-area gang, and supplied the crack cocaine to sell to local drug users known by Reynolds and Fohrenkam.

Monday morning in Carlton County Court Reynolds pleaded guilty to the controlled substance crime in the third degree, admitting that she drove the vehicle to the parking lot near Super One grocery store and McDonald’s restaurant, where she got out of the car and walked to another vehicle, where she sold crack cocaine to another individual for $400. The sale was actually monitored by police through observation and recording devices worn by the police informant making the purchase, which was paid for with marked currency.

Reynolds was the second person to agree to a plea agreement in the case. On July 29, Gilbert pleaded guilty to the charge of third-degree sale of a narcotic, while the felony charge for crime committed for the benefit of a gang was dismissed.

Judge Dale Wolf sentenced Reynolds to a stayed sentence of three years and 90 days of local confinement, which he agreed she could do under a Huber agreement, which means she can leave the jail during the day to attend school. Reynolds must also meet the terms of her probation and pay a $1,000 fine.

Gilbert was sentenced by Wolf in July to local confinement of 90 days and three years of supervised probation for felony third-degree sale of a narcotic as well as local confinement of 30 days for a misdemeanor charge of theft of movable property. Following his court appearance, however, Gilbert was extradited to the state of Wisconsin to face felony charges related to a weapons offense in Sawyer County.

Fohrenkam has a contested omnibus set for 2 p.m. Nov. 4, while a contested omnibus for Thinelk set for Oct. 14 was cancelled and he is set for sentencing Nov. 17 in Carlton County Court.

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