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Drug dealer moved from music to drugs to suicide

Felon decides to take his life on the morning of his sentencing.

A law enforcement officer displays one of three semi-automatic rifles found along with ten garbage bags full of marijuana in a hose on Klepinger.

Ty Greenlees/Staff A law enforcement officer displays one of three semi-automatic rifles found along with ten garbage bags full of marijuana in a hose on Klepinger.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Law enforcement officers on Jan. 25, 2005, remove garbage bags full of marijuana from a house on Klepinger after a drug raid yielded pot and several weapons, including three semiautomatic rifles.

Ty Greenlees/Staff Law enforcement officers on Jan. 25, 2005, remove garbage bags full of marijuana from a house on Klepinger after a drug raid yielded pot and several weapons, including three semiautomatic rifles.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Drug ringleader found dead hours before sentencing

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By Tom Beyerlein and Mary McCarty
Staff Writers Updated 9:55 PM Saturday, June 27, 2009

Jeff Cost spent what was to be his last night as a free man watching DVDs with his wife. There was a sword over their heads: The next morning at 9, Cost was to report to the federal courthouse to begin a probable 10-year prison sentence for drug dealing and money laundering.

Conni Cost went to sleep about 1 a.m. on Thursday, June 18. Sometime that night, her husband opened the bedroom window to let fresh air in. He sealed with duct tape any opening that would allow auto exhaust fumes to enter the home from the garage and laid a rolled-up towel at the bottom of the door from the garage to the kitchen. He taped a note to a car mirror.

Then Cost, 59, sat down in the front seat with the car windows down, turned on the ignition and waited for the carbon monoxide to kill him.

His wife woke up about 7:30 a.m. and found his body. She called police and asked them to respond without flashing lights and sirens. Police and medics were joined by federal Treasury agents, who told the cops to take pictures of his face to prove he was dead.

It was the end of the line for Jeffrey Lynn Cost, who amassed a fortune moving tons of marijuana into the Dayton area and evaded detection for three decades. Federal prosecutors specifically avoid ranking drug dealers, but they said Cost moved “staggering” quantities during an unusually lengthy conspiracy.

“Mr. Cost had reached the pinnacle of success” as a drug dealer, said the woman who brought him to justice, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Guerrier.

He had nowhere to go but down.

A circle of friends

Cost grew up in Kettering, graduating from Fairmont West High School in the 1967 Summer of Love. He played at school dances with bands called The Mystic Five and The Toronados. His senior yearbook shows no extracurricular activities for Cost, but Guerrier said some high school friends later joined his dope enterprise. Law officers dubbed it the Circle of Friends Organization, or CFO.

“This conspiracy was born out of personal relationships,” Guerrier said. “Casual smoking of marijuana was part of their growing up and they took it from there.”

Federal officials believe the CFO began by 1979, and Cost was there from the start. He admitted he became its leader in 1998. Authorities say that’s when Cost secured a direct connection with Arizona-based marijuana suppliers and his illicit business soared.

Charles Esposito of Beavercreek grew up with Cost in Kettering and they played in bands together off and on for most of their lives. “He was a very good guy,” Esposito said. “He was a friend and he would do anything to help anybody out.”

His daughter, Krista Esposito of Fairborn, said Cost picked a bad way to earn a living.

“But he was such a nice person; he would have given you the shirt off his back. It’s an amazing thing, how people can lead two totally different lives.”

Daniel Draughn of Kettering, a co-conspirator, described his stepfather quite differently in court papers. Draughn’s attorney wrote that Cost “ruled with an iron fist. Daniel bears physical scarring as evidence of his stepfather’s harsh abuse.”

Draughn, who pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge and is awaiting sentencing, said Cost took advantage of Draughn’s financial problems to manipulate him to join the CFO.

Court papers show Draughn’s mother, Barbara Apperson, divorced Cost after 24 years of marriage in 1998, the same year he assumed leadership of the CFO. She accused Cost of domestic violence at the time of the divorce and the following year.

Money-laundering schemes

On Dec. 6, 1999, Cost, through an agent, established two businesses with the Ohio secretary of state: B&J Carpet Cleaning and Flabby Roads Studio. The feds say they were two of numerous businesses set up by CFO members to launder drug money and make it appear they had legitimate income.

As the drug business flourished, Cost tried to insulate himself from arrest by paying several co-conspirators, not only to arrange for the shipments from Arizona but to store and handle the pot locally. “He got the others to take most of the risks, in his mind,” Guerrier said. By the CFO’s final years Cost “was collecting $100 for every pound coming in here and (he didn’t) have to break a sweat.”

There were warning signs that it would all come crashing down, but Cost chose to ignore them. In about 2000, a CFO courier was arrested in another state with 451 pounds of pot in hidden storage compartments of a truck. “That would have been a good time to reassess the danger and kind of call it quits,” Guerrier said. Instead, the CFO arranged for the Arizona suppliers to deliver future shipments.

By 2003, the CFO was hitting its peak. A ledger seized when authorities executed search warrants in 2005 showed that for several years the organization cleared $15 million annually, said U.S. attorney’s spokesman Fred Alverson.

Unlike most major drug dealers, the CFO members didn’t flaunt their wealth, Guerrier said. “Most of them weren’t flashy, other than some of the toys they had. Many of them held legitimate jobs.” But the CFO had grown into a large operation and “the more moving parts there are, the more chance somebody’s going to (get caught and) cooperate.”

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