Editor’s Note: In this week’s The Rabbit Hole, reporter Peter Beck pulls together hundreds of pages of court records originating from criminal cases, seizure notices, and civil lawsuits of 13 defendants to tell the story of two purported drug kingpins. Beck traces the steps of the men through the 1970s synthetic pop music scene, 1980s modernist architecture movement, and 1990s pop culture movies. That’ll all make sense soon enough, we promise. - Seamus
On January 19, 2020, three men met outside a house in Papillion, Nebraska, as law enforcement watched from afar. When two suspects left in a gold Ford Sport Trac, investigators on a major financial crimes task force followed, biding their time until the driver made a mistake behind the wheel. The investigators pulled over the gold Ford for failing to signal a lane change and asked to search the car.
After the driver said no, a K9 was deployed and alerted to the smell of drugs, giving the investigators probable cause to search and find $200,403 in a black trash bag. Back in Papillion, a different team of law enforcement simultaneously executed a search warrant on the home, where the team found more than a hundred pounds of marijuana.
The bust was part of a federal investigation that revealed a marijuana business operating nationwide with earnings in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It would lead to a prosecution ensnaring 13 defendants accused of drug trafficking, millions of dollars seized by the federal government, a prominent California businessman’s death, and the potential loss of one ‘80s rockstar’s home.
David Max Leidermann and James Reja were L.A. musicians who rubbed shoulders with some of the ‘80s most prominent cultural icons. Prosecutors say they were also ringleaders of a major drug trafficking organization which supplied marijuana and THC vape pens to drug dealers nationwide.
To get a sense of how two struggling artists become purported drug kingpins, one must start at a famous L.A. music studio almost twenty years ago. Long before Nebraska law enforcement searched through trash bags overflowing with cold hard cash.
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