A Great Bend man has been charged in U.S. District Court with one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Michael L. Wintholz was booked into the Barton County Jail on Monday, to be held without bond for the federal indictment. Undersheriff Larry Holliday said local law enforcement received the warrant information around noon Monday. Not long after that, "a citizen reported he was at a business." He was arrested in a joint operation involving the Barton County Sheriff’s Office and Great Bend Police Department.

Police reports show the arrest was made at the Goodwill Store, 1705 Main, around 4 p.m.

The grand jury’s indictment was handed down on June 1 and unsealed on June 8. It alleges Wintholz and 14 co-defendants "knowingly, willfully, and unlawfully conspired with each other, and with persons whose identities are both known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine." This is alleged to have happened somewhere in Kansas at an unknown date, "beginning before March 1, 2011, and continuing until on or about May 31, 2011."

A jury trial in Topeka has been requested.

Others charged are Alex Jacob Harris, Heather Ray Schulz, Lisa Lynn Cunningham, Anna Lucy Devore, Shawn Allen Cunningham, James Eugene Flowers Jr., Garrett David Hunt, Douglas Wade Kamauff, Rafael Munoz, Crystal Nicole Bacon, Brenda Sue Harris, Chad William Harris, Dustin Lee Vandam and Randall Keith Acker.

Michael Wintholz is the brother of Mark Wintholz, one of three Great Bend residents arrested on May 2 when the BCSO and GBPD jointly executed three narcotics-related search warrants in Great Bend. In that case, which Holliday said is not related to the Michael Wintholz case, officers seized suspected narcotics with an estimated street value of $13,000.