Washington men in Hill County court on Amtrak drug run

Two Washington men will be in court in Hill County to answer to charges they were running drugs via Amtrak’s Empire Builder from Washington to North Dakota.

Jason R. Ball, born in 1977, and Robert. J. Day, born in 1980, are scheduled to enter pleas of not guilty or guilty in state District Court in Havre Tuesday to charges including felony counts of possession of drugs and carrying drugs on a train and misdemeanor charges including possession of drug paraphernalia and obstructing peace officers.

According to the charging documents, representatives of the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation notified local law enforcement Sept. 18 that Ball and Day had left Rugby or Minot, N.D., en route to Washington on a “drug run.”

A source had told the Bureau of Criminal Investigation that Ball and Day had intended to rent a U-Haul and use it to haul a “large load of marijuana” to North Dakota.

Later that day, a U.S. Border Patrol agent provided corraborating information indicating the two men had scrapped the plans to use a U-Haul and instead were riding the Empire Builder back to Minot Sept. 21.

Sept. 21, about 1:20 p.m., law enforcement including representatives of the Border Patrol, Havre Police Department and Hill County Sheriff’s Office boarded the Empire Builder in Havre and served search warrants on the two men.

Two pieces of luggage taken on board by Ball and Day each contained material the officers field tested as marijuana, as well as the marijuana residue kief and also hash, a concentrated form of marijuana.

The two men each told the officers that the illegal substances belonged to the other, with Ball saying he had purchased three-quarters of a pound of marijuana from a medical marijuana provider in Oregon, but denied that the marijuana, kief and hash in one of the bags belonged to him, the documents said. Ball did say a marijuana pipe in that piece of luggage did belong to him.

Ball told the officers that the $2,000 he used to purchase marijuana from the medical marijuana provider was provided “by a bunch of buddies” in North Dakota, and he planned to share the marijuana with them, although he added that he did not intend to make any money doing so.