Agent Says Phelps Revealed Drug Lab Just Hours Before Deputy Was Shot

The same day that he allegedly shot a sheriff’s deputy in a rural area of Vista, Mark Phelps showed an undercover federal agent a methamphetamine lab in Carlsbad that he and an associate used to manufacture the drug, authorities said Tuesday.

In an affidavit filed in federal court Monday, Drug Enforcement Agency Special Agent Frank Fabiano said that he posed for three months as a supplier of ephedrine, a chemical precursor to methamphetamine, during an investigation of Phelps and an associate, Raymond Turnipseed.

Phelps, who has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of the sheriff’s deputy, and Turnipseed have been charged with conspiring to manufacture methamphetamine. Phelps is being held at County Jail in Vista after a shoot-out with Deputy James Bennetts.

Putting Out the Bait

Fabiano said he met with Turnipseed several times during the investigation. He said he supplied Turnipseed in June with an ounce of ephedrine “as a sample of what I had available for future deliveries to him and persons associated with him in the manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine.”

In return, Fabiano wrote, Turnipseed gave him $300 and a sample of the methamphetamine that he said he and “Mark” were producing. Fabiano later recognized Mark as Mark Phelps.

On July 28, Fabiano gave Turnipseed about a pound of ephedrine. In return, Fabiano was to get part of the methamphetamine that was manufactured.

Three days later, Fabiano met Phelps and Turnipseed at a restaurant in Carlsbad and returned with them to Turnipseed’s home on Garfield Street, according to the affidavit. In the garage below Turnipseed’s apartment, Fabiano said, he was shown methamphetamine paraphernalia under a tarpaulin--just hours before Phelps allegedly shot Bennetts.

“The run-in with the sheriff’s deputy occurring the same time as the (drug) investigation was coincidental, but because of the run-in, the agent decided to go ahead (with charges),” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Pat Swan.

The maximum penalty for conspiring to manufacture methamphetamine is 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine, Swan said.

Turnipseed was arraigned on the drug charges Monday, but Phelps will not be arraigned in federal court until after he is arraigned in Vista today on attempted murder charges.

Attempted murder carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, said Deputy Dist. Atty. William Collins.