A Milwaukee real estate company owner is among 18 people arrested by federal agents this week on charges related to a sprawling drug conspiracy case, according to a newly released criminal complaint.
Fifty-two-year-old Sam Stair, owner of S2 Real Estate Group, has been accused of renting homes and apartments across the city to “drug traffickers for their use as ‘stash houses’ (places to store controlled substances intended for distribution) and ‘trap houses’ (places from which to distribute controlled substances),” according to the complaint.
In addition, Stair allegedly relied on these traffickers to manage other rental units under his ownership and to find “drug addicts to whom the rental units [could] be rented.”
Stair subsequently deposited income from the rentals into the same accounts as rental income from other, legitimate tenants, allegedly “to conceal the source and nature of his drug trafficking activity,” according to the complaint. That activity allegedly included the sale of fentanyl, cocaine, marijuana and other narcotics; officers seized cash, scales, hypodermic needles and firearms during the arrests.
In the complaint, agents named 25 properties owned by Stair through dozens of LLCs and associated with drug trafficking, drug overdose deaths or the presence of alleged drug dealers.
Stair has a prior record from 1992 for possession of THC, amphetamine, LSD and psilocybin. His wife, Regina Stair, was involved in controlled purchases of fentanyl from another defendant named in the complaint, according to reporting from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Stair’s office manager, Jeanette Lopez, was also charged for “renting properties to drug traffickers” for use as stash houses and arranging documents and utilities related to the rental properties to ensure that drug traffickers’ names were not associated with the rental process. Lopez subsequently charged a percentage of the drug trafficking profits along with the monthly rents, the complaint said.
Lopez’s previous criminal record includes convictions for resisting or obstructing an officer, and she was previously arrested for harboring or aiding a felon, battery, and burglary of a building or dwelling.
According to the Journal Sentinel, Stair owns and manages more than 150 properties comprising more than 500 units across the city. Since 2016, at least 360 violation orders have been filed against S2 Real Estate Group or one of its entities with the city’s Neighborhood Services department, related to nuisance behavior and unresolved maintenance problems.
Stair remains in custody after an appearance in court on Wednesday. He is due to return to court for an April 27 detention hearing.
