By Logan Smith
/ CBS Colorado
A Wyoming man and a Colorado woman who were tracked down a year ago outside the Wind River Indian Reservation were both recently sentenced for their roles in supplying and selling drugs to Native American tribes there.
Dusty Harris, 42, of Casper, Wyo., and Thelma Faber, 45, of Greeley, were pulled over in a car near Shoshoni, Wyo., in November 2023. This, after state criminal investigators and detectives from Fremont County (Wyo.) Sheriff’s Office determined Harris previously sold controlled substances to enrolled members of the Eastern Shoshone and/or Northern Arapaho tribes living on or around the reservation. They also learned Harris was making another delivery from Colorado.
Deputies found the car being driven by Harris. Faber was in the passenger seat.
Also inside the car, sheriff’s deputies found 94 grams of methamphetamine, 34 grams of fentanyl, a scale, and other drug paraphernalia.
Investigators later searched the pair’s cell phones and found texts and social media messages related to drug trafficking over the course of the prior month.
Faber pleaded guilty in May to one county of possession with intent to distribute. She was sentenced in October to 57 months in federal prison. The Wyoming federal court judge also strongly recommended Faber, who also goes by Thelma Jones, attend a residential drug abuse program while in prison. Further, the judge ordered Faber be on supervised probation for four years after she is released from prison. Per case documents, Faber will be tested for drugs up to 10 times per month and receive mental health treatment and vocational/eductional training during those four years.
Faber is currently housed at FCI (Federal Corrections Institution) Phoenix.
Harris also pleaded in guilty in May but to additional charges. He was sentenced to 142 months in prison. Case documents show Harris and his attorney are appealing his sentence. He is currently at FCI Leavenworth in Kansas.
The Wind River Reservation is home to over 3,900 Eastern Shoshone and 8,600 Northern Arapaho enrolled tribal members. In 2020, the Northern Arapaho tribe there declared a state of emergency over the influx of methamphetamine.
The problem is not a new one; a 2006 report from the National Congress of American Indians decried the “devastation” of meth use across all tribal communities.
“Native Americans now experience the highest meth usage rates of any ethnic group in the nation,” the report stated.
Federal agencies and courts are responsible for prosecuting crimes that occur on Native Reservations and which cross state lines.
Logan Smith is an assignment desk editor at CBS Colorado in Denver with more than 30 years of journalism experience in digital, television and print media.
