UPDATE: Sentencing Hearing Delayed for 80-Year-Old Marijuana Dealer
BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge in Massachusetts has delayed the sentencing of an 80-year-old man who admitted running a sprawling multi-state marijuana-dealing operation. Marshall Dion was scheduled to be sentenced today (THUR), but U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston put off the hearing until March 10 because she wanted prosecutors and Dion's lawyer to submit sentencing briefs. Dion's lawyer, Hank Brennan, says the judge wants to know why the proposed sentence in Dion's plea agreement is up to seven years in prison when federal sentencing guidelines call for 30 years. A stop for speeding in 2013 in Junction City, Kansas, led authorities to Massachusetts and Arizona, where they found about $15 million in cash, nearly 400 pounds of marijuana and ledgers detailing drug deals going back to 1992.
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(earlier version)
BOSTON (AP) — An 80-year-old man who admitted running a sprawling multi-state marijuana-dealing operation faces sentencing in federal court in Massachusetts. Marshall Dion faces up to seven years in prison under a plea agreement with prosecutors who say he has been selling marijuana for decades. In 1985, Dion crashed a single-engine plane in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, and then crawled along a field with two broken ankles as cash floated in the air. He denied that the $112,000 recovered from the crash scene was his. A stop for speeding in 2013 in Junction City, Kansas, led authorities to Massachusetts and Arizona, where they found about $15 million in cash, nearly 400 pounds of marijuana and ledgers detailing drug deals going back to 1992. Sentencing is scheduled for this (THUR) afternoon in Boston.