Man accused of ordering meth through the mail

A Havre man is accused of receiving a shipment through FedEx of methamphetamine that he paid for with a Walmart card.

Stefan Hickel is being charged with attempted criminal possession with intent to distribute and criminal possession of drug paraphernalia.

A FedEx employee called a Tri-Agency Task Force agent to inform him the company received a suspicious package that was to be delivered to a 2nd Street Havre address, a charging document says. The employee told the agent that another FedEx employee thought the package suspicious and opened it. The FedEx employees determined that the contents of the package was crystal meth.

The FedEx employee asked the agent what he wanted him to do with the box. The agent had the package forwarded to him and he took custody of it Aug. 26, 2014, the document says.

The agent obtained a warrant, after which he had the substance tested and validated as meth — 10.4 grams of it.

Once he was granted another warrant, the same day, the agent repackaged the box that was discovered at the Great Falls FedEx and delivered it to the Havre address himself, posing as a FedEx employee. A man the agent recognized as Hickel opened the door — Hickel had been mentioned by informants earlier in the year — signed someone else's name, and received the package, the document says.

The agent left and returned with the search warrant team. Hickel, waived his rights and talked. He began by saying he didn't know what was in the package and that it belonged to his roommate, who was not there.

But as the agent told Hickel the information he got from informants and text messages from seized phones, Hickel began to change his story, the document says.

After the agent told Hickel that the phone records show him, not his roommate, checking the tracking number on the package six times within two days, Hickel admitted he ordered the packages, but said he was expecting money and movies, not meth, the document says.

Hickel said that his roommate was using a Walmart Green card to pay the individuals selling the meth. Then he said he sent money through MoneyGram at Walmart himself, through a contact he got from his roommate, but he threw the package away when he saw that it contained an “8 ball” of meth, the document says.

The document goes on to describe the agent going back and forth with Hickel, as well as his wife, who was also questioned. The charging document never says Hickel ever said he ordered meth on purpose.

The report indicates that the task force believes Hickel to be the one who ordered the meth in his roommate’s name.

Hickel has been summoned to appear at an arraignment hearing Dec. 30.