Meth kingpin's 22 felonies bring life prison sentence

Timothy Owens, 50, was convicted last month on 22 felony counts following a three-week trial in Pima County Superior Court.

According to Deputy Pima County Attorney Richard Wintory, Owens and Donna Greenwell, 51, ran a large methamphetamine ring in the middle of Tucson for about 18 months.

Owens was responsible for obtaining the methamphetamine and Greenwell was responsible for selling the drug or exchanging it for stolen property.

A ledger found in Greenwell's possession showed that during a seven-month period, Greenwell sold more than 20 pounds of methamphetamine for $245,000 in cash, plus an additional $200,000 in tools, guns, cars and other property, Wintory said.

Owens and Greenwell were indicted along with 39 other people in August 2005, but the investigation into the case began in the fall of 2004, Wintory said.

The Counter Narcotics Alliance was asked by the Tucson Police Department for help in investigating the burgeoning methamphetamine business in Midtown, Wintory said.

It was soon afterward that Rich Kivi, a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, discovered that many of the same people were being arrested again and again on drug-related charges only to be released to commit new crimes while awaiting trial.

Included on the list of repeat offenders were Owens and Greenwell, Wintory said.

Kivi learned that in July 2004, Greenwell had been arrested by Tucson police officers after a routine traffic stop turned up several bags of methamphetamine and cocaine in her car.

When Kivi looked into the case further, he discovered that locked up in an evidence locker was a ledger seized along with the drugs.

To his surprise, inside the ledger was a list of seven month's worth of drug transactions, Wintory said.

Kivi and other members of the task force were investigating information from the ledger when another break in the case occurred in January 2005, Wintory said.

Because Owens was caught sneaking into the United States with one pound of methamphetamine, he had decided the organization needed to learn how to cook its own methamphetamine, Wintory said.

Owens orchestrated the kidnapping of a methamphetamine cook and the burglary of a meth lab, Wintory said.

Unfortunately for Owens, Wintory said, he and six others were caught in the process.

Despite Owens being confined in the Pima County jail, Wintory said Owens didn't stop his criminal activity there.

Over the next few months, Owens unsuccessfully tried to recruit three men to kill five people — three who could testify against him at trial and two others who owed the ring drug debts, Wintory said.

Jail officials monitoring Owens' phone calls overheard the phone calls and taped them, Wintory said.

When Owens went to trial last month, the phone calls were played in court for jurors, Wintory said. Jurors also learned of other phone calls in which Owens arranged for drug debts to be collected, for new dealers to be recruited, for robberies to be committed and for witnesses to be intimidated.

They also learned Owens and other members of the ring regularly called their friends and family members from jail to tell them what to say to Pretrial Service officers to ensure they would be able to bond out of jail, Wintory said. The friends and family members would regularly lie about where the suspects were living and working so they wouldn't look likely to flee if released from jail.

Owens was convicted of illegal control of an enterprise, use of an electronic communication device in drug transactions, solicitation to commit murder and kidnapping, and a variety of drug charges.

On Monday, Pima County Superior Court Judge Michael Cruikshank sentenced Owens to a mix of concurrent and consecutive sentences.

Owens is eligible for parole after 25 years on the life sentence, but if he is paroled he'll start a 25-year sentence, Wintory said.

Greenwell, 51, pleaded guilty to 16 counts last month immediately after opening statements in her trial.

She, too, is facing a life sentence.