NATE JENKINS / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 7:00 pm
The alleged web of cross-country steroid traffic that includes Lincoln began unraveling last year in a New York post office, according to court documents.
On Nov. 16 at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Station on Third Avenue, U.S. Postal Inspector Charles Schriver watched a man believed to be Vladimir Ribartchouk mail several packages, according to a search warrant issued late last year to Lincoln-area investigators.
One was addressed to 24-year-old L. (Levi) Lewis, 5635 Elkcrest Drive in Lincoln.
Lewis and two others Chad Case, 30, and Kenneth Thompson, 23, both Lincoln are facing felony drug charges stemming from the investigation officials describe as significant and ongoing.
Although Ribartchouk was believed to have sent the package, the name on the return address was Jason Newman. Omaha-based Postal Inspector Paul Beekhuizen checked the listed address with his colleagues in New York.
"Postal personnel told me the Bahamas Commonwealth Mission of the United Nations is located at this address and the names Jason Newman and Jason Muller are not known at this address," Beekhuizen said in an affidavit contained in the search warrant.
The apparent attempt at deception emerges in court documents as a pattern sustained for about a year.
The investigation revealed that from Feb. 25, 2004, until early November, 22 packages weighing between 1 and 3 pounds with return addresses containing the names Newman and Muller were sent to Lincoln and Waverly residences most of them to Thompson.
Postal inspectors were ready to pounce in November, partially because of information they gathered on Ribartchouk.
On Nov. 5, the Omaha inspector learned the New York inspector intercepted a package containing steroids in 2003 addressed to Ribartchouk.
And just four days after that, a Rhode Island postal inspector told Beekhuizen a bodybuilder arrested on charges related to steroids had received several packages from "Newman" and "Muller." The bodybuilder told the inspector the steroids actually came from Ribartchouk.
That information helped set up the mid-November sting on Lewis.
On Nov. 16, the New York inspector told Beekhuizen to watch for the package dropped in the mail by a man he believed to be Ribartchouk.
Beekhuizen recovered the package a day later from the Omaha Air Mail Facility. After obtaining a search warrant, he found what is alleged to be steroids inside the package.
The next day, law enforcement officials arrested Lewis after he picked up the package at a Lincoln post office.
They later searched his car, finding more steroids and $2,850.
Officers were led to Thompson and Case by mail labels issued in 2004, interviews with witnesses who allegedly received steroids at their addresses at the request of Thompson and Lewis, a recorded conversation and other evidence.
Case and Lewis said their attorneys advised them not to speak about the matter. Thompson could not be reached.
Ribartchouk has said no law enforcement officials have contacted him on the matter and that he was not aware of accusations he dealt steroids.
Ribartchouk described himself as a chef. "I don't even exercise," he said.
"Is this a joke?" he said after portions of the Nebraska search warrant were read to him. "Is this a practical joke?"
Wednesday, State Patrol Investigator Matt Brodecky described Newman as an alias for Ribartchouk.
Reach Nate Jenkins at 473-7223 or njenkins@journalstar.com.