TEXARKANA, Texas–An alleged member of a white supremacist street gang accused of using his 14-year-old son to hand off drugs to customers has been charged with multiple felonies in Bowie County.
Richard “Skin” Keith Latham, 40, allegedly used his child to effect exchanges of meth for money while the boy stayed with him earlier this month in a second-floor room of the Studio 6 Motel on N. State Line Ave. in Texarkana, Texas, according to a probable cause affidavit. Investigators with the Texarkana Texas Police Dept. and the Texas Dept. of Public Safety allegedly used an undercover operative to arrange a purchase of methamphetamine from Latham.
Latham is an alleged member of WAR or White Aryan Resistance, which has been identified as white supremacist by the FBI, according to the agency’s online records. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s website said the group was affiliated with the skinhead movement and founded in the mid-1980s.
Latham allegedly told an undercover buyer that his son “would deliver the methamphetamine,” the affidavit said, noting that Latham “facilitated the methamphetamine sale” and “delivered the methamphetamine to his 14-year-old son to then deliver to [the buyer], making a hand-to-hand delivery.”
The affidavit further pointed out that the boy’s “demeanor was calm and [he] appeared to be accustomed to making drug transactions as a routine.”
“[Investigators] know from experience and training in law enforcement that drug transactions are inherently dangerous, leading to robberies, assaults and murders,” the affidavit said. “Richard Latham is routinely placing his son in imminent danger of death, bodily injury and/or physical or mental impairment.”
Latham was booked into the Bowie County jail July 13 on charges of manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance, manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance using a child, and endangering the welfare of a minor.
The most serious charge facing Latham is delivery of a controlled substance using a child. If convicted, he faces five to 99 years or life in prison. If found guilty of delivery of a controlled substance, Latham faces two to 20 years and if convicted of child endangerment, he could receive six months to two years in a state jail.
Latham is currently being held in the Bowie County jail with bonds totaling $250,000. At the time of his arrest on the current charges, Latham was free on a $5,000 bond posted after an arrest June 24 for possession of a controlled substance, a state jail felony.
Should 202nd District Judge John Tidwell revoke Latham’s bond in that matter, he could be held in custody even if he manages to post bond in the new cases.
Judge Tidwell is presiding over all Latham’s pending Bowie County cases.
