Police: Kidnapped boy’s mother involved with drug money

By Mary Manning

Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | 7:01 p.m.

Metro Police

Cole Puffinburger

Metro Police are focusing on the role of the mother of 6-year-old Cole Puffinburger played in helping her father steal drug money from Mexican nationals.

Police believe that the mother's involvement led to the boy's kidnapping, according to testimony at a Family Court custody hearing that led the judge to place the boy with his father, Robert Puffinburger on Wednesday. The couple divorced in 2004.

No one has been arrested in the kidnapping case yet.

Metro Police Lt. Clint Nichols said he appeared at the hearing because he had been subpoenaed.

He testified that Julie Puffinburger is at the center of a police criminal investigation into her possible role in her son's kidnapping.

"I know the abductors came into her residence and spoke to her by name. I know that her father was involved in illegal activity and she received funds from that illegal activity," Nichols testified.

A search warrant showed that $60,900 had been placed in a safe deposit box owned by Cole's mother, Julie Puffinburger.

Nichols also said that this is not the first time her child's kidnapping had crossed her mind. When Cole was on vacation with his father several months ago, the mother tried "to hoax a kidnapping event in order to draw her father out of hiding," Nichols said on the stand.

The lieutenant said that the mother went to her father's favorite bars and spread the rumor. Police have said that Clemens Tinnemeyer, Jr., Cole's grandfather and Julie's father, stole millions of dollars from Mexican drug dealers.

Federal authorities said that at least $4 million of illegal drug money that Tinnemeyer stashed in various parts of the country has been recovered.

But Julie Puffinburger is telling a different story, saying she went to police earlier this month after she got a warning note in July, but was told that there was no imminent threat and she should buy a shotgun, the Associated Press reported.

Cole Puffinburger was then kidnapped by two armed men posing as police officers after they ransacked his mother's house, tied up the mother and her fiancee, Billy Joe Murray, and snatched Cole.

"To suggest (Julie) Puffinburger is guilty of a crime or somehow responsible for the abduction is ludicrous," lawyer Dennis Leavitt, who represents the mother, told the Associated Press in an e-mail.

"It appears that Julie's father may have been involved in illegal activity, although nothing has been confirmed," Leavitt said.

Leavitt quoted the note as saying: "We know you have our money and you have one week to report. We know where your family is and we don't play games."

Police alleged during the kidnapping investigation that Tinnemeyer, 51, disappeared in May after stealing millions in drug money from "Mexican nationals" and drug traffickers. He was taken into federal custody in California as a material witness in the kidnapping case.

Julie Puffinburger was the boy's custodial parent before the Oct. 15 kidnapping, but police returned Cole to his father after the boy was found unhamred wandering a dark Las Vegas street on Oct. 18.

Leavitt said that Julie is being held "vicariously responsbile" for her father's actions and treated "extremely badly" by police and news media. He said Julie Puffinburger told police where to find the cash which she received in two courier deliveries of $30,000 each in June. The attorney said she assumed the cash was from her father.

Julie has not seen Tinnemeyer since October 2007, and did not know how to contact him.

— The Associated Press contributed to this story.