Ryn Gargulinski

Creativity on Fire

UPS driver busted for delivering marijuana sent by Arizona drug traffickers

One UPS driver was delivering a bit more than new shoes from Zappos or orders from Amazon.com – the jury said he was distributing marijuana.

Marijuana gives new meaning to "special delivery" /Thinkstock

Stanley William Taylor Jr., 36, of Cleveland, Ohio, was found guilty Sept. 15 of conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, according to a news release from the District of Arizona’s Office of the United States Attorney.

The gig was going on for the past two years, with drug traffickers in Arizona buying wholesale quantities of marijuana then shipping it out to buyers in New York, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and, yes – Taylor’s home state of Ohio.

“The defendant agreed to use his position as a UPS delivery driver in Cleveland, Ohio, to assist the drug trafficking organization with the delivery of boxes filled with illegal drugs, ” the release says.

The drug traffickers’ ledgers and banking records showed sales of more than 6,900 pounds of marijuana and more than $900,000 in cash deposits.

While the release did not disclose how much of a cut Taylor received for risking his job, reputation and freedom, we can guess it must have been lucrative to take such a gamble.

Or perhaps he simply wanted a change of uniform, trading in the bland UPS brown for an eye-catching orange.

Taylor’s sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 6 with U.S. District Court Judge Susan R. Bolton, the same judge that presided at the trial and was decided by a federal jury in Phoenix.

The maximum sentence Taylor can receive for the charge, specifically conspiracy to possess at least 100 kilograms of marijuana with intent to distribute, is 40 years, a $2 million fine, or both.

Hope he saved some of that supplemented income.

[tnipoll]


Credit where it’s due:
The investigation leading to the guilty verdict was conducted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Mesa Police Department, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Tempe Police Department, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The prosecution was handled by Kory A. Langhofer and Krissa Lanham, assistant U.S. attorneys with the District of Arizona in Phoenix.

“The success of a drug trafficking organization requires the complicity of many – and this verdict demonstrates you will be held to answer,” said Dennis K. Burke, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona.

What do you think?

Would you risk your job by using it as a front for illegal activity?

Would you risk your job for anything?

Do you steal paper clips?

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Comments

  1. The success of a drug trafficking organization requires the complicity of many – and this verdict demonstrates you will be held to answer,” said Dennis K. Burke, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona.

    Big boasts and chest-pounding always follow these sorts of press releases.  This is about the same as some guy with a small bucket bailing water back over the levees during Katrina telling himself what a good job he is doing.   If America could arrest its way out of its drug problem, I think we’d be seeing some progress by now.  Of course, for Mr. Burke, it’s job security.  Using UPS is interesting and novel and newsworthy, of course.   But somebody should tell Mr. Burke that nothing has changed; someone else will be delivering the marijuana next week. 

    • hahahha! i often leave out the punchy quotes that come with releases – but since i was naming all the names, figured i’d get this one in there. i like the drama of such quotes – and do wish they COULD hold true…
      …but, as you pointed out, it will just shift to another ‘delivery man’ tomorrow…
      i, too, like the ups angle of the tidbit. it brings up several things to think about – like risking our own jobs or, better yet, what we would do if we didn’t get our news shoes but instead a big box of marijuana were accidentally delivered to our door?

  2. Long long ago ( I suppose it’s safe to mention it now ) I worked in a hospital. All the employees would place their orders, and the Red Cross deliveryman would arrive with boxes of blood from the city distribution center, and one special box with our order in it.
    What was really cool, is that you could order it on dry ice 🙂
     

  5. Dennis K. Burke and many others thinking they are doing something good for the American people by putting all marijuana carring people in jail is like pushing back the water of the oceans. All of the United State district attorneies, you are just wasting your time by waisting the american tax payer dollars. But you seem so hung ho in charging and convicting decent United State citizens. All of the you will be account for when the citizens wake up and decide they’ve had enough and turn the laws back to the orginal GOD given rights of all of the American citizen. The reasons they do this is it pays for the judges, the U.S. DAs, the U.S marshals, and everyone involved. The bad thing about this is they actually believe that marijuana is bad for you and will lie to defend the bogus laws. The U.S. government will go to all lengths to incarcerate inocent hard working people. When the people get out they have felony records so they can’t own a firearm. Thats in the 2nd amendment, its not a previlege, its a GOD given right. We need to get back what is ours. The government has grown to large and is stifling the citizen of this great country.

    • nice simile, geoff eastman, about “pushing back the water of the oceans.”
      i’ll have to agree with that one, just from the massive amounts of press releases we get daily on more and more marijuana drug busts. thanks for comment.

  6. Do we dare demand laws based on logic and reality rather than on irrational fears of what could theoretically happen?850,000 people were arrested last year for marijuana offenses while at the same time marijuana use went **up** by 8%. We taxpayers get *nothing* back for the $40 billion a year we pay for the prohibition!Keeping marijuana in Schedule I alongside heroin diverts $10 billion a year to the sadistic, murderous cartels and undermines all the hard work of parents to keep our kids away from dangerous drugs. We need to speak up and demand marijuana be controlled with the same laws as alcohol!

    • thanks for input, jillian galloway – those are some heavy duty stats – eek!
      glad you are speaking your mind – also dig your avatar.
      and you ask a big question bringing up ‘laws based on logic and reality’ – ha! that would be a great tenet by which to live all around, yet all too seldom seems to happen.

  11. When we get as agressive on the powers that be for making (billions) as we get with the little delivery man who is finally making ends meet without the government bs.  If we took as much time running our mouths as studying who behind the drug trade we would be appaled. Arresting him is as helpful to the drug trade as B.P. is to protecting our enviroment. so now we see the difference between asleep and awake, if you do not just ajust your pillow a little bit.

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