DES MOINES — The case against 10 defendants accused of running a major drug ring in Ottumwa moved into the federal courts Wednesday in Des Moines.

It’s a big case. But a federal agency conceded it nearly blew the case before any arrests ever took place.

Mark Cory, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency, said during testimony an informant purchased guns from suspect David Horvath on two different occasions. The purchases also included a bulletproof vest. Other gun purchases came from fellow suspect Israel Joubert.

Investigators handed the guns over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

“In June … the ATF sent an asset forfeiture notification to one of the defendants in the case,” Cory said. “That caused problems for us.”

Authorities say the notification allowed the ring to identify one of the informants. Cory accused Joubert of confronting the informant on at least two occasions after the federal notice about the seized guns. He quoted Joubert as telling the informant, “Get gone or you’ll be gone.”

The ring’s response included working back along the informant’s past to try and confirm the informant’s activities.

“We received information that Mr. Joubert and [James] Edwards were actively visiting the confidential source’s prior places of employment,” in an attempt to find out more about the informant, Cory said.

The informant received a text message saying that if he needed a place to stay, James Edwards had “a small room” out back. He told investigators he was being threatened and believed his life was in danger.

That text message threat came from James Edwards, the man Cory described as second only to William Edwards in the drug trafficking organization. James Edwards’ attorney tried to neutralize the issue by drawing attention to his client’s property, which includes a small structure to the rear of the house.

The judge concluded the message was ambiguous, that both menacing and innocuous interpretations are plausible.

Other threats were less veiled. Cory claimed suspect Derek O’Neal specifically threatened to kill the informant if he found out he was working for police. He described a confrontation in which O’Neal reached into a back pocket while confronting the informant. The informant thought O’Neal was reaching for a gun and pointed a shotgun at him. O’Neal left.

The informant is currently “in a safe place,” Cory said.

O’Neal’s attorney attacked Cory’s account. He probed the connection between federal agents and the informant, whom Cory said is paid by the Southeast Iowa Inter-Agency Drug Task Force. The attorney questioned the chain of communications from the informant, through his handlers, through the task force and finally to Cory.

Investigators say Joubert’s relationship with the Edwards brothers goes back to when they were teenagers, and that he also brought cocaine back to Ottumwa from Chicago. O’Neal’s ties to the brothers go back nearly as far.