Driver who led police on chase that ended in deadly Newport crash in 2020 will spend 25 years in prison

CINCINNATI — The man who led police on a 2020 pursuit that ended in a Newport crash that killed two innocent bystanders will spend 25 years in prison, a federal court ruled Thursday.

Cincinnati police chased 32-year-old Mason Meyer through the city into Covington, and then into Newport on August 7, 2020. The pursuit ended in a crash that killed 81-year-old Raymond Laible and his wife, 80-year-old Gayle Laible, both of whom had been sitting outside Press on Monmouth cafe when Meyer’s vehicle veered off the road and struck them. Two other bystanders suffered minor injuries in the wreck.

Officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in conjunction with Cincinnati Police and the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force had been conducting surveillance on Meyer in Cincinnati when Meyer drove away, according to court documents.

Also in the vehicle that day was 26-year-old Kirsten Johnson. Federal officials said Meyer and Johnson had 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, two loaded hand guns and a loaded rifle with them in the car that day.

On Aug. 7, 2020 at approximately 4 p.m., Cincinnati police tried to stop the suspects in their vehicle in Lower Price Hill. Meyer refused to stop and the chase accelerated onto the Roebling Suspension Bridge into Covington at high speeds. While in Covington, body cam footage showed police officers zipping through a back alley, inches from nearby homes.

The chase then twisted into Newport, eastbound across Columbia, before the suspect lost control of his vehicle at the intersection of Monmouth and Fifth Streets. Officers held the suspects at gunpoint as they called medics to the scene.

Just 45 seconds later, medical crews arrived on-scene, but 81-year-old Raymond Laible and his wife, Gayle, died in the crash.

Johnson and Meyer were just two of over a dozen people — many from the Cincinnati area — who were indicted by a grand jury in a firearms and narcotics conspiracy, federal officials said. The leader of that gun and drug trafficking organization, 36-year-old Ryan Haskamp, was sentenced to spend 27 years in prison in February.

Federal officials say Haskamp supplied Johnson, Meyer and the other members of the ring with guns and drugs.

In total, law enforcement seized 11 guns, more than 1 kilogram of methamphetamine, more than 200 pounds of DMT, more than 5 kilograms of marijuana, over 15 kilograms of hashish and hashish oil, over 1 kilogram of MDMA and more than 19,000 doses of LSD, fentanyl, cocaine and other synthetic drugs from the organization, federal officials said.

Haskamp used at least five Cincinnati residences as stash houses to store and sell drugs; he also had others in the organization rent Airbnb locations and hotel rooms for the operation. Haskamp would have drugs delivered to the Airbnb rental properties, supplying drugs for redistribution to several co-defendants in Cincinnati and Dayton.

Others convicted in this case include: