Boise man sentenced for selling meth

June 21, 2007 6:00 PM EDT
Idaho Press-Tribune Staff

BOISE — A Boise man will serve 14 years in federal prison for selling methamphetamine, U.S. Attorney Tom Moss said today. Travis Raby, 32, was sentenced before U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge at the federal courthouse in Boise Wednesday. The case was investigated by the Canyon County Sheriff Office.

The investigation of Raby began in April 2006, when detectives with the Boise Police Department interviewed a man who had been arrested with an ounce of methamphetamine and more than $20,000 in cash. The man said he frequently bought quarter-pound quantities of the drug from Raby, whom he called “Big T.” In October 2006 another person arrested for possession of methamphetamine told a similar story.

Based on that information, Boise police obtained a search warrant for Raby’s residence, where they seized a quarter-pound of methamphetamine, some marijuana, drug scales and $7,000 in cash. Raby told the officers that he had been selling methamphetamine for five years and estimated that over the past year he had sold an average of two to four pounds a week. A large portion of the drugs sold by Raby came from co-defendant Mike Woods of Payette. Woods pleaded guilty in April of this year to drug trafficking and possession of a firearm in relation to a drug crime. On April 29, Woods was sentenced to 22 years.

Together, Woods and Raby were held accountable by the court for selling approximately 70 pounds of methamphetamine in the Treasure Valley over the last several years.

The case was investigated by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Ada County Sheriffs Office, the BANDIT unit of the Boise Police Department, the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office and the High Desert Task Force in Payette.