Local News in Brief : Couple Arrested on Drug Charges

A Baldwin Hills couple were arrested Wednesday on federal charges that they supplied at least 18 kilograms of cocaine for the narcotics ring operated by Elrader (Ray Ray) Browning.

Marvin McCaleb, 29, and his wife, Donna Brown, 27, were arrested at their home in a 7 a.m. raid by Inglewood police and agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Assistant U.S. Atty. John Gordon said. Federal authorities seized the couple’s home, which is valued at $500,000, Gordon said.

The house is a few blocks from the one Browning lived in before he was sentenced to two life terms in prison in August for running one of the city’s major narcotics rings, Gordon said.

A complaint issued in U.S. District Court charges the couple with distributing 18 kilograms of cocaine in cardboard boxes to Browning’s home on May 23, 1987. Prosecutors said the cocaine was seized by federal agents after it was carried to Detroit for sale by an admitted courier for the organization.

Gordon said he expects that the pair will also be indicted on charges of hiring two people to ferry 4 kilograms of cocaine from Los Angeles to New York. The two couriers were arrested with the drug during a layover in Denver on July 12.