Federal jury convicts Talkeetna man on meth charge

ANCHORAGE — A federal jury has found a Talkeetna man guilty of carrying 2.3 pounds of methamphetamine from Arizona with the intent of distributing it in Alaska.

According to a brief federal prosecutor James Barkeley filed in the case, William Pariseau, 67, was nabbed as the result of a “shockingly specific” tip that he would be carrying two pounds of meth strapped to his legs.

Prosecutors say Pariseau left his Jeep Wrangler at the Anchorage international airport on Oct. 13, 2008, and took a flight that departed at 1:30 a.m. for Seattle. His itinerary showed he’d be flying round-trip from Anchorage to Tucson, Ariz., in 18 hours.

But while he made it to Arizona, Pariseau didn’t get as far as Alaska. At the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a police dog found the scent of drugs on his recently vacated seat on the Arizona-Washington leg of his trip and officers followed him to his Seattle-Anchorage departure gate.

“Pariseau was observed to be stiff as a board and unable to bend at the knees,” Barkeley wrote in the brief.

So they arrested him. Barkeley wrote that this wasn’t the first time Pariseau is suspected of transporting drugs to Alaska.

“Just a month before his SeaTac arrest, Pariseau took two other such trips. On one September 2008 trip, while he was being driven back to Talkeetna from the Anchorage airport with the drugs still wrapped around his legs with elastic bandages, Pariseau complained that he was receiving chemical burns from the drug packages,” Barkeley wrote.

On the other trip, Barkeley wrote, Pariseau was holding meth at a traffic stop in which he was a passenger.

The prosecutor wrote that initially Pariseau was charged both with possessing meth with the intent to distribute it and with conspiracy to distribute the drug. Prosecutors chose to drop that second charge because most of the evidence supporting it was thrown out when Pariseau was not read his rights.

But that evidence, Barkeley wrote, consisted of Pariseau telling law enforcement shortly after his arrest that he was working with other people in Alaska and Arizona and that he was paid to bring the meth up to Alaska.

In addition to the meth found on his legs in Seattle, Barkeley wrote that law enforcement also found an ounce of cocaine on Pariseau.

A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Anchorage says it took the jury one hour to convict Pariseau. The mandatory minimum sentence for possessing as much meth as Pariseau had is 10 years in prison, a $4 million fine or both. Pariseau remains jailed until he receives his sentence, which is scheduled for Aug. 3 at 10 a.m.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.