Two drug traffickers from just over the state line are out of business following a multiagency investigation that led to their arrests on Thursday, June 26, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina.
Scott DeCasper and Julieana Perry have been charged with trafficking methamphetamine and various other offenses, the Sheriff’s Office said. DeCasper and Perry have been listed as Cherokee County residents, though DeCasper formerly lived in Blairsville.
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The arrests came after a lengthy investigation and subsequent joint operation between narcotics agents with the sheriff’s offices of Cherokee County in North Carolina, and Union, Fannin and Gilmer counties in Georgia.
Investigators had received information that DeCasper and Perry would be traveling to Georgia to pick up meth to bring back to Cherokee County, so on June 26, agents from each sheriff’s office conducted a vehicle stop on the pair in Gilmer County.
The Gilmer Crime Suppression Unit found over 10 ounces of meth inside the vehicle, and DeCasper and Perry were placed under arrest without incident and confined in the Gilmer County Detention Center without bond, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said.
About two months ago, UCSO Staff Sgt. Jay McCarter joined the roughly two-year-old investigation, bringing additional resources to bear thanks to his inclusion on the FBI Safe Streets Task Force.
McCarter has been active on the FBI task force since March, and Union County Sheriff Shawn Dyer said his participation as a duly sworn federal officer assisting area investigations has been paying “big dividends.”
In addition to greatly assisting in this case, McCarter has aided in the investigation and apprehension of close to 30 drug offenders since entering the task force this spring, many of them out-of-town suspects directly responsible for drugs coming into the community.
McCarter said this joint investigation showed that Union County residents had received drugs from DeCasper and Perry, which is something Sheriff Dyer wants stopped across the board.
“We’ve had trouble in recent years with people going outside our jurisdiction to other counties and buying drugs to bring back here to use in our county,” Dyer said. “There wasn’t a whole lot we could do about that other than lock them up for using drugs – and we want to get the source.”
In light of this dilemma, Dyer thought it was a great idea when McCarter approached him last year about signing up for the FBI Safe Streets Task Force to expand the investigatory scope of the UCSO Narcotics Division.
“Being a part of that allows us the ability to receive extra intel and all kinds of other resources where he can travel to outside jurisdictions and help these other counties,” Dyer said. “And we do it as a joint effort; we go and help them bust these drug dealers.
“This last arrest with Scott DeCasper and Julieana Perry, as a result of being in this task force and the intel we learned here and working with these other sheriff’s offices, we were able to make this significant trafficking arrest.
“And this is one of the perks of being in that task force. It’s not actually costing us any money to be in the task force, but it is saving us some money because they pay part of (McCarter’s) wages.
“Plus, it gives us almost unlimited resources to help surveil these offenders, track them and make their arrests possible without them even getting the dope back to our county. So far, it’s working out really good, and we hope to continue that in the future.”
Added Dyer, “I would like for the community to know that we’re working every angle that we can to catch drugs in Union County. We’re not going to stop it all, but we’re going to sure put a big dent in it.”
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office would like to extend its appreciation to the sheriff’s offices of Gilmer, Union and Fannin counties for their help and commends them “on a job well done in their continued effort to protect our communities.”
Sheriff Dyer is grateful for the interagency cooperation as well, and he also thanks community members for the information they provide investigators.
“If anybody’s got any tips or info on people that are using drugs, please call in (at 706-439-6066) and let us know,” Dyer said. “People leaving tips will remain anonymous, and we will check into it.”
All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
