A federal jury convicted a Minnesota man of attempting to distribute methamphetamine by mailing the drugs in stuffed toy animals from California to Winona, Minn.
Damien Duwjan Shade, 48, was found guilty Wednesday after a two-day trial of being a felon in possession of a firearm and attempted possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. He was remanded into custody before sentencing, which has not yet been scheduled. He faces up to life in prison.
“Stuffed animals are symbols of childhood, not vessels for poison,” said acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson. “Turning a child’s toy into a cover for lethal drugs shows the lengths drug traffickers will go to peddle their poison. This verdict ensures there will be consequences.”
At trial, federal prosecutors described the investigation unfolding in March 2023 when a FedEx facility at the Rochester airport alerted police to three suspicious packages en route from San Diego to Winona. The packages, all signed by “Trayvon Strange,” were addressed to invented people who did not live at the addresses on the packages.
A drug-detecting police dog signaled that drugs were inside the boxes, prosecutors said. Authorities opened the packages and found 6 pounds of methamphetamine total in the three boxes.
The next day, police placed tracking devices inside two of the packages headed to an associate of Shade’s in Winona, and replaced the methamphetamine with rock salt and other material to return the packages to their original weight. They then delivered the boxes to the marked address on the boxes and saw Shade arrive at the associate’s home to collect the boxes.
When law enforcement searched the home, they found “guts of the cut-open stuffed animals” strewn across the floor and the bags filled with salt and methamphetamine. The third box was found unopened during a search of Shade’s home, prosecutors said. Officers also found a loaded Comanche III .357 Magnum revolver in a dresser drawer. Shade had been convicted in 2013 of being a felon in possession of a firearm in San Diego.
Federal prosecutors said Shade told police he purchased the drugs in California and shipped them inside the stuffed animals to himself.
