Drug suspect’s home had hiding place, underground tunnel

BROOKSVILLE –
They stole identities from dead people.

The federal government last year tracked a fake passport to a man living in rural Hernando County. Local authorities took it from there.

Detectives kept crawling down the rabbit hole. It got deep fast.

In an arduous case that required the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office to tie together vague clues about a drug criminal who remained on the run for 37 years, the last of the puzzle pieces were put into place almost a year after SWAT swooped in and made an arrest.

Eugene Paull, 66, and his girlfriend, Subrena Spence, 32, were apprehended March 2, 2011 after the sheriff’s office executed its search warrant at 6356 Emanuels Way.

“They were living the good life off their illegal gains,” said Sgt. Jeff Kraft, who led the sheriff’s office investigation.

Paull was living under the name of Robert Edward Harris. Harris was born in March 1943 and died two years later.

Spence stole the identity of Carla Gwynetta Mannefee, a girl who died in 1988 at the age of 10. In another bizarre twist to the case, investigators learned Spence had married her brother, Marvin Spence, so she could regain her original last name. She had gone by Carla Spence since 2003, according to arrest documents.

Sheriff Al Nienhuis held a media conference Tuesday morning in the driveway of the couple’s former home.

“I’m very impressed our economic crimes detectives were able to get the information they could get,” he said.

Paull’s criminal history began July 1968 in Atlantic City, N.J. when he was arrested for possessing a loaded tear gas gun without a permit, according to the sheriff’s office. He was arrested three more times during the next five years before he began living under an assumed identity.

Following his arrest 11 months ago, Paull remained at the Hernando County Jail for three months until he pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge, according to court records. He avoided money laundering charges after he surrendered more than $1 million worth of assets, Nienhuis said.

The vehicles the couple owned were purchased in Spence’s name and she was charged with five counts of use of a false or fictitious name to obtain a vehicle title. Nienhuis said she was deported to Jamaica last summer.

Paull, a U.S. Army veteran who served during the Vietnam War, was credited for time served and was placed on two years probation. He has since relocated to Miami, authorities said.

John Hislop, a special agent with the U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service, also attended Tuesday’s media conference. He declined to go into details about how his office learned about Paull’s illegal passport, but said criminals who steal identities from dead people are on borrowed time in the post-9/11 world.

“Time is catching up to these people,” Hislop said.

Nienhuis said once DSS contacted his agency last year, it was only a matter of weeks before Paull and Spence were arrested.

Even still, both Hislop and Nienhuis called the case “unique” based on how long Paull successfully eluded capture.

A worm hole and getaway tunnel

Kraft led reporters on a tour of the house and property, showing them how Paull had taken extreme precautions to avoid arrest in the event deputies came knocking on his door one day.

“He was definitely more paranoid than most,” said Kraft.

He recalled Paull being well-manned and down to earth when he questioned him. Kraft also said Paull had told him he was prepared to do anything to avoid going to prison.

The house is located on a winding dirt road about a half-mile north of State Road 50 east of Brooksville. It includes a getaway tunnel that was still under construction before it was seized, a secret elevator, a door in the floor covered by carpet, a spiral staircase leading to a hide-out spot and steel bars covering the windows and front doors. Paull also had monitoring devices and silent alarms.

The hideaway space, referred to as the “worm hole,” is a closet-sized room with a couple overhead cabinets.

The elevator leading to the escape tunnel was in Paull’s office. It was operated by a remote control and was inside the closet to the right. Removable shelves and matching paint and carpeting camouflaged it.

The silent alarm was activated whenever someone drove or walked up to the house.

Sheriff’s deputies didn’t knock on the door when they made their move the morning of March 2, 2011.

In spite of his paranoia and spending half his life looking over his shoulder, Kraft said Paull wasn’t paying close attention the morning of his arrest. When his alarm was activated, he assumed it was a friend, relative or someone else he knew. He eventually looked at one of his TV screens and saw a sheriff’s vehicle pulling into his driveway. He ran to close his garage door, at which time SWAT was already in position, Kraft said.

Paull surrendered without a fight.

If Paull had made it into the basement or tunnel, there was a possibility deputies wouldn’t have found him, Kraft said. They didn’t know about the secret elevator or the trap door in the floor that led to the second set of spiral stairs.

Paull and Spence owned two homes, a 48-foot yacht, an RV, a Dodge Charger, a Harley Davidson motorcycle and various firearms. The assets were purchased in Spence’s name. All of them were seized by authorities, including almost $20,000 in U.S. currency, according to the sheriff’s office.

Spence’s relatives, including her brother, also lived in the house. They returned to Jamaica along with Spence, according to the sheriff’s office.

Nienhuis said Paull’s run-ins with law enforcement did not end following his move to Miami. Even though the Drug Enforcement Agency declined to reinstitute his prison sentence following his 1974 conviction, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives opened its own investigation. Agents found a cache of explosives on Paull’s property, Nienhuis said.

He awaits trial on the federal case, but remains out of jail. Details about his federal case were not available.

‘He beat the system’

In addition to the homes, vehicles and yacht, Paull and his girlfriend owned several exotic birds and had a couple Rottweilers, according to the sheriff’s office.

In their backyard was a pond filled with catfish and tilapia. Kraft said the freezer was stocked with fish when deputies seized the house.

The tunnel was covered by a tarp and a back ho on the property was used to dig the giant hole in the ground, which was well hidden from the nearest road.

The loose dirt was dumped on the other side of the tree line – another extra step Paull took to conceal the tunnel’s construction, according to the sheriff’s office.

Had it been completed, the tunnel would have stretched to the east end of the 3-acre property, Kraft said.

After Paull fled in 1974, he eventually wound up in Jamaica, where he presumably earned his wealth selling illegal drugs. That was where he met and fell in love with Spence and the two lived a lavish lifestyle together for about 12 years, Nienhuis said.

Two offshore bank accounts were located in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Due to international banking laws, the remaining funds in those accounts could not be seized, according to the sheriff’s office.

Paull said he was willing to die before going to prison, Kraft said. Since falling off the map in 1974, he’s successfully avoided it. His only stint behind bars was his three months in jail last year.

In one respect, Paull’s capture helped him.

Once he dropped the alias and resumed his actual identity, he became eligible for benefits through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Essentially, he beat the system,” Kraft said.

After Tuesday’s conference, a Hernando Today reporter called a phone number registered to Paull. The man who answered declined to confirm his identity and refused to comment further.

As part of Paull’s money laundering scheme, he traveled the country telling people he was raising money on behalf of U.S. military veterans, said Nienhuis.

He ran a nonprofit charity and he and his son produced a video about the plight of veterans titled “The Forgotten.”

Kraft said Paull was a Vietnam veteran and “genuinely cared” about those who served in the military, but one year he raised as much as $100,000 and only donated $1,300 of it.

Since the sheriff’s office seized the two homes, they have used it for undercover stings targeting unlicensed contractors. The most recent sting took place Jan. 27, during which nine people were arrested.

It was one reason the sheriff’s office didn’t release details of the case until almost a year after the arrests were made.

“We just chose to hold off … because we knew it would be of huge interest and any release would ruin our undercover (operations),” Kraft said.

The sheriff’s office owns the property on Emanuels. The title was cleared last month. Nienhuis said he hopes to sell it soon.

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