A 21-year-old Coeur d'Alene man whom police believe to be the organizer of a major marijuana smuggling ring surrendered Friday to the detective who's been chasing him for more than a year.

Idaho State Police Detective Terry Morgan was spending a quiet post-Christmas morning when his cell phone rang.

A Spokane attorney was on the line.

"I'm 10 minutes out and I have Nathan Norman with me," the attorney said.

Morgan raced to his office, telling the attorney, Frank Cikutovich, to bring Norman to meet him there before heading to the Kootenai County Jail.

The detective said he had to set eyes on the man who's been indicted on 59 counts of drug trafficking and money laundering in federal court.

"I've been after him a whole year and I'd never met him," Morgan said.

Norman is suspected of setting up a network of "runners" who, court documents say, carried more than $4 million in cash in hockey bags north into Canada. They allegedly returned with backpacks weighted with more than a ton of marijuana, known as B.C.

Bud, during nighttime hikes through fields and woods.

Morgan had to meet the man who, police documents say, rewarded successful runners with all-expenses-paid vacations to Cancun and bought a $43,000 Cadillac Escalade with cash. Those documents say Norman was the target of an assassination scheme set up by a competing B.C. Bud smuggler.

Norman has eluded capture since arrest warrants were served during police raids in three states more than a month ago.

The meeting was anticlimactic, Morgan said.

"He's a head shorter than me. He's pudgy. He looked like he was in junior high," Morgan said. "There seemed to be a sense of relief. I asked him if he was glad this was all over. He said he was real glad. I asked him if he had a good Christmas. He said he had a great Christmas.

"You look at him and say `This is the guy I've been chasing for 13 months?'" Morgan said.

Norman, who was booked into the Kootenai County Jail on Friday, is scheduled to make his first appearance in Coeur d'Alene's federal court at 12:45 p.m. Monday, Cikutovich said.

"We will argue for his release, saying he is not a flight risk since he turned himself in," Cikutovich said.

Then, Cikutovich said, he will size up the government's case.

Morgan and agents from a drug task force and the FBI have been investigating a tightly organized group of young Coeur d'Alene-area men they suspect of smuggling more than a ton of marijuana across the border from British Columbia.

The smuggling ring is one of two in the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene area that came to light when a woodcutter stumbled across the body of Brendan Butler in November 2002.

Butler had been stabbed in the neck and dragged into a ditch on a remote road near the eastern shores of Hayden Lake.

Information found on a cell phone in Butler's pocket led Kootenai County Sheriff's detectives Dan Mattos and Brad Maskell to believe that the 20-year-old prep school graduate, and son of a prominent Hayden Lake family, had been the organizer of a Bud-smuggling ring.

Butler, they came to believe, had hired a crew of Southern Californians to act as his muscle to rob and kill rivals he believed were cutting in on his business.

The rivals were identified by police as Norman, of Coeur d'Alene, and Benjamin Scozzaro, 20, of Hayden.

Morgan said he started investigating Norman and Scozzaro a couple of days after Butler's body was found.

On Oct. 11, 2002, court documents say, Butler was driving several people around in his Cadillac sedan, scouting out places to dump bodies in advance of an anticipated attack on Norman and Scozzaro.

Butler's enforcers killed him in a dispute over payment, police say.

Giovanni Mendiola of Lake Forrest, Calif., pleaded guilty to killing Butler and was sentenced in October to life in prison, serving a minimum of eight years before he is eligible for parole.

Norman and Scozzaro fled Coeur d'Alene for Southern California in early April, just days after Mendiola and six others were arrested in connection with Butler's death. Shortly before leaving, Norman retained Cikutovich as his attorney.

Cikutovich said he called the U.S. attorney's office in Coeur d'Alene last month after police arrested 14 people they say are connected to the smuggling ring.

Norman was not at home when federal drug agents raided his apartment in San Diego on Nov.19.

He has been on the lam until popping up Friday.

"Literally, he contacted me this morning," Cikutovich said Friday. "He said he heard he had warrants out on him and he wanted to turn himself in.

"I had him meet me at my office and I drove him to Coeur d'Alene."

Norman declined a request for an interview, Kootenai County sheriff's officials said.

"He asked me about jail. He said `How is it?'" Morgan said. "I said, `Well I don't know.' "This is a nice Christmas present," Morgan said.

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