Reed's release denied, girlfriend indicted (See DOCUMENTS)

PANAMA CITY — U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak said Tuesday that there was nothing special about Dr. Michael Reed’s case that would warrant a special release from jail pending sentencing on a drug charge.

At the same time, a new name has appeared, but with almost no details as to her involvement, in the case.

Amy Cooper, who has described herself to The News Herald as Reed’s girlfriend, was indicted Tuesday along with Rob Lee Young in a superseding indictment that replaces the initial indictment in Young’s case. Young is charged along with Reed and five other men in a conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine that dates to 2006.

Reed, 55, a surgeon in the area who retired from medicine last week after pleading guilty to the conspiracy charge, is accused of obtaining two kilograms of cocaine from Dario Espinosa and Hector Melara, two co-defendants, and using half of one kilo of the drug while giving Melara the other half to sell. Reed was arrested when the second kilo of cocaine was delivered to a person identified in court records as “Individual B” at his home on May 27. Reed was at work at the time of the delivery, according to court documents.

Individual B, a drug customer of Melara’s, was the person who introduced Reed to Melara, according to court records.

The indictment charges Young again in the conspiracy, but also accuses him of possessing with intent to distribute cocaine on May 9, 12 and 27, plus using a telephone to facilitate those crimes on May 9 and 12.

Young was scheduled to plead guilty to his involvement in the case on Aug. 12. It was unclear Tuesday whether this new indictment would change that.

Cooper is charged with a single count of using a telephone at 8:30 a.m. on May 27 to facilitate the crime of distribution and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. She faces up to four years in prison if convicted as charged.

The details of Cooper’s involvement were not revealed in public documents. Her attorney, Jim Appleman, was not immediately available for comment.

Prosecutor Gayle Littleton asked the court to issue summons for Cooper and Young to appear in court for their first appearances on the new charges. A date for that appearance was not immediately scheduled.

Release denied

Smoak denied Reed’s request to reconsider his decision to hold him in jail pending sentencing on Nov. 10.

“(Reed) would have me find him to be an exception because he was a well-regarded surgeon in this community with a clean record and because he has obligations to family and former patients,” Smoak wrote in an order Tuesday. “It is true that (Reed) has farther to fall than his co-conspirators and that his lifestyle will likely suffer the greatest setback from his felony conviction, but these are merely the consequences of (Reed’s) actions – consequences that (Reed) should have considered long before entering the drug conspiracy in the first place.”

After Reed pleaded guilty Thursday Smoak revoked his pretrial release and had him placed in jail.

Reed’s attorney, Marcia Shein, tried to convince the judge that he had the discretion to allow Reed to remain free, but Smoak said the statutes say he “shall” take into custody those who plead guilty to this kind of charge and face the type of penalty Reed does.

Smoak said the only way out of that was if prosecutor Gayle Littleton could assure him that Reed was not looking at prison time, but Littleton was unable to do that.

Shein filed a motion Friday asking Smoak to reconsider his position. She filed a supplement to that motion Monday, saying Littleton did not oppose Reed’s release.

Smoak said in his ruling that his only surprise in Shein’s filing was the fact that the government wasn’t seeking Reed’s presentence detention.

“I can find no other drug case during my tenure as a district judge where the Government has consented to a defendant’s release after entering a plea,” Smoak wrote. “As clear as Congress is in requiring the detention of a defendant like Dr. Reed pending sentencing, it would seem to be in the public’s best interest for the Government to zealously uphold the law and request detention.”

Smoak repeated in his order the position he took Thursday when he revoked Reed’s pretrial release, that statute binds him to incarcerating a defendant that has pleaded guilty to an offense that could put him in prison for more than 10 years unless there was a likelihood that the conviction would be overturned or the defendant was not facing prison time.

Littleton told Smoak Thursday that the government will have to prove how much cocaine Reed was responsible for to determine what kind of sentence he should receive. He faces five to 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine or 10 years to life in prison and an $8 million fine, depending on the amount of cocaine.

Those are maximum penalties. The judge could go below those amounts if he finds that Reed was minimally involved in the conspiracy, has no prior criminal history and has provided substantial assistance to investigators.

Reed, 55, Melara, 50, Espinosa, 51, Israel “Big Happy” Lerma, 29, Milford “Buddy” Vickers, 48, Young, 50, and Mario Gonzales, 46, were indicted of conspiring to distribute cocaine between March 1, 2006, and May 27. Melara, Espinosa and Lerma also pleaded guilty to roles in the conspiracy.

Reed was named in seven of the 32 counts in the indictment, including three charges of possessing with intent to distribute cocaine on April 23, May 6 and May 27, as well as using a telephone to facilitate the commission of a felony on those dates. Littleton dropped those six charges after Reed pleaded guilty to conspiracy.