Ultimate Rock House? : Agents Grab Alleged Drug Dealer’s $1-Million Compton Home

It stands out like a Gucci counter in a K mart, a $1-million house in a city where boarded up, abandoned houses are as common as dandelions in a suburban lawn. Folks in Compton are already spinning tales about it as ornate as the fretwork on the iron fence encircling its lavishly landscaped garden.

“They tell me the faucets are gold,” said a landlord, confiding that he dreams of buying the sprawling brick house, which takes up six lots in a city where a quarter of the residents are on public assistance.

One neighbor says she thought the man who owned the house ran a nightclub; a passer-by says the owner ran a fleet of limousines. Federal law enforcement officials say he was a drug king. James Morris, they say, bragged in the presence of undercover agents that “this is the house that drugs built.”

Morris, described by federal officials as a major drug dealer, was arrested on drug-trafficking charges May 20, the same day agents seized his four-bedroom, three-bath house, saying it was probably worth $1 million. It was the first such seizure in the Los Angeles area in more than a year, officials said.

“If that house were in Beverly Hills, it would be worth millions,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Bonnie Klapper. “I have no idea what it’s worth in Compton.”

The house has a room-sized spa, a sauna in the master bathroom, a grand piano and a closed-circuit television security system. A search of the house turned up $91,000 worth of gold and diamond jewelry, more than $7,000 in cash and 14 loaded weapons, said Vincent Furtado, spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

Since the house fell to the agency, traffic on the 200 block of North Mayo Avenue has been heavy, the neighbors say. On a recent evening, a steady stream of cars drove down the street past the small tract houses, most with iron bars on the windows, slowing to a crawl in front of the big house.

“Century 21 came by,” said the woman neighbor, who like other residents on the street would not give her name.

It’s Not Hard to Spot

There’s no number on Morris’ house, though it isn’t hard to spot, with its sweeping circular driveway and four-car garage, which federal officials say sheltered a Mercedes-Benz and a green and white Corvette. On the day the house was seized, Furtado said, a maid was working inside while three gardeners labored outside.

Federal officials said they know little about Morris’ personal life, except his age--48--and birthplace--Shreveport, La. City Hall records show that an Eva Dixon filed the building permits and paid the taxes on the house. Klapper identified Dixon as Morris’ wife but said she lives and works in another city.

Since his arrest, Morris has been indicted on charges of selling large quantities of cocaine and heroin and is being held without bail. Drug agents are still looking for a Dan Guiton, described as Morris’ right-hand man, and for businesses through which they believe Morris laundered his drug profits.

Police and city officials insist they had no reason to suspect that the big house they watched rise on Mayo Avenue three years ago was financed with drug money.

“There are many, many beautiful houses like that in Compton,” declared Councilman Maxcy D. Filer. Compton Police Patrol Commander Thomas Armstrong said, “We wondered, but there was nothing that my patrol ever reported to indicate there was anything illegal having to do with the house.”

Furtado scoffs. “When someone (with no visible means of support) is capable of buying out six lots, tearing down the houses and building a palatial house in the middle of a ghetto, you’ve got to wonder,” he said.

Despite statements from Compton police, as well as residents on North Mayo Avenue, that they never observed anything suspicious at his house, the indictment against Morris says that two large drug buys were made in the house last fall by undercover agents.

“I don’t believe that,” another neighbor said. “It was so quiet.”

Investigators are still unraveling Morris’ alleged drug selling network, but they believe, Furtado said, that the quiet neighbor had a part in the violence that infects Compton streets. “From what we can determine,” said the DEA agent, “he was working with some of the gangs down there and in Los Angeles.”

Furtado said the Compton seizure is the agency’s first in a stepped-up assault against major drug dealers. “We’re going to start seizing their homes out there,” he said.

On North Mayo, meanwhile, Fred Jackson, the man who wants to buy the confiscated house, said, “I’ll take it for $210,000, right now.

“It’s been a dream of mine to have something like this.”