Leo Wayne Cook has been described by an FBI informant as "the largest drug dealer" on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, allegedly trafficking heroin up through Indian Country despite a series of drug arrests between Chicago and Minnesota over the past two years.
The 33-year-old Redby, Minn., man was first stopped alongside his girlfriend and another friend more than two years ago after authorities found about a pound of heroin in their car on their way back to Minnesota from Chicago.
But a judge suppressed evidence seized from Illinois investigators and the case was later dismissed. Almost exactly one year after that search, Cook was again arrested with even more heroin in his car during a stop along a northern Minnesota highway.
Cook was back on the street after bonding out of jail a day later. And last month, an informant told FBI agents that Cook had just returned from Colorado with another load of heroin laced with deadly synthetic carfentanil — just as Red Lake officials began sounding the alarm about a series of overdoses on the reservation. Even that apprehension proved short-lived. Cook is again back at home, having won pretrial release from a federal magistrate judge.
Last month, federal prosecutors became the latest enforcement arm to try to detain a man who has so far successfully deflected charges that he is responsible for pumping heroin into Indian Country, and Cook is preparing to fight another legal battle in a case that could soon expand into conspiracy charges as heroin overdose deaths continue to surge across the country. While the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment on the ongoing case, Cook's attorney says the case is likely to raise a number of constitutional issues, again including possible challenges to evidence taken by law enforcement. Cook is charged with possessing more than 500 grams of heroin with the intent to distribute.
"He's presumed innocent and we're certainly going to make sure that his constitutional rights are upheld," said Ryan Pacyga, Cook's attorney. "We'll know a lot more about the case after we have an opportunity to look at the discovery and see what the government's next step is here."
Cook and two others won a significant legal victory last year when an Illinois appellate court upheld a judge's decision to throw out evidence seized during a 2015 traffic stop about 50 miles west of Chicago, long considered a key source of heroin for the Twin Cities market.
Kane County, Ill., sheriff's investigators found about 400 grams of heroin, two loaded handguns, $8,000 in cash and marijuana flakes inside the car. But a judge ruled that the traffic stop was illegally prolonged because the K-9 sniff and search of the car came after a sergeant finished a written warning for Cook's girlfriend, the driver of the car, and after he asked Cook about proof of insurance that was not required under Illinois law.
