Testimony reveals slow downfall

A fat package of money orders. A ledger of illicit deals. Frequent phone calls between North Charleston and an Arizona desert town.

These were the building blocks in a narcotics investigation that exposed a cross-country marijuana pipeline and led to the arrest of a Lowcountry businessman whom investigators describe as a master drug runner, authorities said.

Recent testimony and court records offer new details and insight into the lengthy probe that resulted in 37-year-old Rashad Muhammad's arrest on marijuana trafficking and weapons charges in August. These records detail a sophisticated, long-distance operation that funneled hundreds of pounds of the smokable weed into the Charleston area.

Muhammad, who remains in custody, bills himself as a savvy entertainment promoter active in charitable work. But authorities say that's a carefully-crafted front that unraveled with the Aug. 20 seizure of nearly 500 pounds of marijuana.

Some of the marijuana was found in a van tied to Muhammad; the rest in an Air Park Road office building that is home to his entertainment company, a Masonic lodge over which he presides and a colorectal cancer foundation he started, North Charleston police said.

The investigation into his activities began some four years earlier when Charleston County narcotics investigators got a tip that a large shipment of dope was arriving from Phoenix in May 2004. Investigators arrested a man who showed up to retrieve two crates with 328 pounds of marijuana from a North Charleston business. The man fingered Muhammad as the intended recipient, a federal affidavit states.

Investigators tried to stage a delivery but the other suspect tipped off Muhammad, authorities said. By the time investigators showed up at Muhammad's Goose Creek home with a search warrant, he had cleared out most of his belongings, the affidavit states.

Authorities indicted Muhammad and the other suspect on trafficking charges, but prosecutors eventually dropped the case because they didn't think the evidence was strong enough to take to trial.

The investigation into Muhammad apparently stalled out until this past March, when federal agents said they intercepted a package containing $50,060 in money orders shipped from a home he owns on Lodgepole Drive in Ladson. The package was bound for an address in Marana, Ariz., about 90 minutes from the Mexican border, authorities said.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents found notes and ledgers in the Marana home listing drug weights and currency amounts, with the word "Charleston" written on them, authorities said. Agents also found phone records detailing frequent calls between the Marana home and a phone registered to one of Muhammad's businesses on Air Park Road, an affidavit stated.

The same day the money orders were seized, Muhammad changed the address on his driver's license from Lodgepole Road to St. James Boulevard in Goose Creek, agents stated.

ICE agents placed Muhammad's Air Park Road offices under surveillance and watched on June 19 as he and another man ferried a large box in a rental truck to Muhammad's Goose Creek home, the affidavit stated.

Agents returned to Muhammad's offices on Aug. 20 and saw more items unloaded from a rental truck into the building. After watching Muhammad transfer some of the shipment into a waiting minivan, agents alerted North Charleston police, an affidavit stated.

Police Sgt. Greg Gomes testified at a preliminary hearing last week that officers tried to pull the van over for an improper lane change, but the driver sped off. An officer saw Muhammad behind the wheel, Gomes said.

Police chased the van into West Ashley, where it wrecked on S.C. Highway 171.

Officers recovered about 276 pounds of pot, taped in 19 compressed bricks, from the van. Police found another 212 pounds at the office, along with a military-style rifle, a stolen .38-caliber revolver and three other guns, police said.

The driver of the van ran off before police got there, but Muhammad's DNA was found on the van's air bag, a cell phone beside the vehicle and a juice bottle inside, Gomes said.

The cell phone's call log listed numerous calls to Arizona, and a briefcase in the vehicle contained an airline boarding pass and rental car receipts showing Muhammad was in the Grand Canyon state the previous four days, a federal affidavit states.

In an Aug. 21 search of Muhammad's Goose Creek home, ICE agents seized three bullet-proof vests, travel records, a set of "electronic countermeasures" and other items. So far, no federal indictments have resulted from the federal investigation, only state charges filed by North Charleston police.

Muhammad's lawyer, Andy Savage, seized on this point during the preliminary hearing last week and tried to poke holes in the state's case, hammering away at a lack of eyewitnesses who actually saw Muhammad handling guns or drugs.

Charleston County Magistrate James Gosnell Jr., however, ruled sufficient probable cause existed to bring Muhammad to trial.

Muhammad's wife, Gloria, and more than a dozen family members and friends attended the hearing to show support. Several others wrote to Gosnell asking for a reduction in Muhammad's $1.2 million bail. Gosnell dropped the required bail to $500,000, an amount Muhammad so far has been unable to post.

Muhammad's supporters declined to comment as they filed into the parking lot outside the Leeds Avenue court and exchanged hugs and well-wishes. Across the street, Muhammad was somewhere behind the thick walls and concertina wire of the county jail, waiting to learn his fate.

Reach Glenn Smith at 937-5556 or gsmith@postandcourier.com.