Men hit with heroin, gun charges
Published 11:00 pm Tuesday, November 27, 2007
MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — Two Lynnwood men were at the center of a federal drug and gun investigation months before the body of a man stuffed in a sleeping bag led a SWAT team to the pair’s front door.
Prosecutors believe the men peddled stolen guns and heroin from their Lynnwood apartment. The dead man, whose identity has not been released, may have been one of their customers, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle. He was found alongside the freeway last week in a sleeping bag, the foot wrapped in duct tape.
Federal prosecutors have charged William Lee Ballinger, 63, with three counts of illegal possession of a firearm. David Lee Fresonke, 57, is charged with possession of heroin with the intent to distribute.
No charges have been filed in connection with the man’s death. Mountlake Terrace police detectives continue to investigate how he died and are waiting for the results of the medical examiner’s report, Mountlake Terrace Assistant Police Chief Mark Connor said.
The man’s name is being withheld until his family can be notified.
Ballinger allegedly told an informant he and Fresonke knew the man from prison. He reportedly said the man was at their apartment and overdosed after he binged on heroin, cocaine and alcohol, according to court records. Ballinger was afraid to call police and kept the man’s body in the apartment all day. He allegedly paid two people $800 to help him dump the body sometime after dark on Nov. 18.
The informant’s tip led Mountlake Terrace police to search along 220th Street SW on Nov. 19, but officers didn’t find the body. Two days later a transportation worker stumbled across the deceased man near the freeway.
Detectives searched the defendants’ apartment and allegedly found more than four pounds of heroin, valued at nearly $100,000.
“These are career criminals. If you look at their records you’ll see they spent most of their adult life in jail,” said Rhett Fonseca, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Seattle.
Ballinger has numerous felony convictions, including second-degree manslaughter in 1988. Fresonke has three convictions for bank robbery in Washington and California.
The DEA and with agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm and Explosives began investigating the men in August after an informant was able to purchase an AR-15 rifle from Ballinger and reported that the men were selling heroin and cocaine out of their apartment, according to court records.
The informant bought three additional guns from Ballinger and also was given a “free” sample of cocaine, prosecutors wrote.
The discovery of the body “accelerated” the investigation, Fonseca said.
Federal agents are continuing to investigate the men’s alleged involvement in illegal guns and drugs, he said.
Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.
