Baraboo man sentenced in federal meth bust

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - A Baraboo man learned his fate Wednesday after a busted drug deal led to the discovery of hundreds of grams of methamphetamine in his car, the U.S. Attorney General’s Office reported.

According to the U.S. Dept. of Justice statement, a federal judge declared Carl Rabe had embraced the drug dealing lifestyle and accused him of joining up with major trafficking network as he sentenced the 44-year-old man to eight years in prison. District Judge William Conley handed down his ruling after Rabe pleaded guilty in April to possession of methamphetamine with the intent to distribute.

Rabe’s arrest traces back to October of last year when a member of the Richland-Iowa-Grant Drug Task Force spotted him standing next to a pickup in the parking lot of a retail store in Lancaster, federal prosecutors recounted. Knowing Rabe had been convicted previously on a drug charge and that he had a warrant out for his arrest, the investigator walked up the truck with a Lancaster Police Dept. K-9 in tow.

Rabe was arrested on that warrant and the truck’s driver allegedly confessed he was trying to buy $50 worth of methamphetamine. After the K-9 unit indicated Rabe’s car had drugs in it, a search of the vehicle turned up 425 grams of methamphetamine, a scale, and packaging material, the prosecutors alleged.

Just a day before Rabe’s sentencing, one of the other men who were part of the trafficking network Conley referenced, Christopher Fernette, was given a ten-year term for a similar possession with intent charge, the U.S. Attorney continued. The third man in that group, which had been accused of buying three pounds of methamphetamine out of Minnesota, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. That individual, Dillan Boydston, will be sentenced in November.