Home Town Boy Makes It To The Big Time!

timwinters

timwinters

Ejection Handle Pulled
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...or, maybe the big house.

Subtitled: anyone need a Cherokee Six?

Marble Hill man pleads guilty in cross-country drug trafficking

Apr 29, 2015 01:57 PM

MARBLE HILL, MO - A Marble Hill man pleaded guilty in federal court, Monday, to his role in a cross-country marijuana trafficking conspiracy.

Joshua William Vawter, 37, pleaded guilty to the charge contained in a Dec. 17, 2013, federal indictment, according to court documents.

In pleading guilty, Vawter admitted that he and a co-conspirator transported 202 pounds of high-grade marijuana from California to Missouri using Vawter's airplane, a Piper PA-32-260, which he piloted.

The plea agreement reads when Vawter's plane landed at West Plains Regional Airport in West Plains, MO, on Oct. 31, 2013, law enforcement officers conducted a search of the plane and seized the marijuana and $1,800.

The following day, DEA Agents searched Vawter's residence and seized 60 firearms and $75,000.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Vawter must forfeit the airplane, firearms and currency seized to the government. A date for sentencing has not yet been set.

Vawter faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $1,000,000 fine.

This case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Air and Marine Operations Center (AMOC) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), DHS Custom and Border Patrol, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Howell County, Mo., Sheriff's Department, the Bollinger County, MO, Sheriff's Department and the Missouri South Central Drug Task Force.
 
And, amazingly, it's perfectly legal in Colorado!:dunno:
 
I feel safer now, so glad my tax dollars are funding this and this guys life is ruined. Over a ****ing plant.
 
bartmc said:
I feel safer now, so glad my tax dollars are funding this and this guys life is ruined. Over a ****ing plant.
Click to expand...

Indeed. Such a colossal waste of time, money, and resources.

The important question, however, is whether he filed a flight plan.

Rich
 
bartmc said:
I feel safer now, so glad my tax dollars are funding this and this guys life is ruined. Over a ****ing plant.
Click to expand...

Those plants fund people that are working hard to destroy the United States.

Glad to hear you think so little of the US.
 
The real problem for us is that these outlier outcomes will be utilized as justification for the need to continue to fund their paramilitary day hobby of restricting, accosting and scrutinize/penalizing our activity as cross-country/international recreational flyers. We're all criminals in the eyes of CBP. I don't know how any member or Air and Marine can say they're friends of GA with a straight face. That Nuremberg defense crap doesn't sit well with me.
 
Note to self:

If you're ever busted, get your home meth lab emptied out pronto.;)
 
that guy deserved to be arrested, if he's so stupid as to use a cherokee 6 for a job that a dodge caravan can do. Airplanes are magnets for attention. California to missouri isn't exactly crossing a border or an ocean
 
Zeldman said:
Those plants fund people that are working hard to destroy the United States.

Glad to hear you think so little of the US.
Click to expand...
it seems to me that the people working hardest to destroy the united states are the ones in government doing things like this, funded by money borrowed from my future grandchildren. If we had a lick of sense, then instead of prosecuting these "criminals" we'd be taxing them.
 
Zeldman said:
Those plants fund people that are working hard to destroy the United States.

Glad to hear you think so little of the US.
Click to expand...

You talking about the people of the DEA, Homeland Security, and those raking in money from the "war" on drugs?
 
The bad part is that he had to quit his day job. He and his wife were both youth ministers at one of our local baptist churches. :rolleyes:
 
Zeldman said:
Those plants fund people that are working hard to destroy the United States.

Glad to hear you think so little of the US.
Click to expand...

Californians? I guess I see your point.

I'm not the one whose policies have created the business partners and trade routes. Thank your representative for that, he must be the one who hates the U.S.
 
I don't want people around me who smoke pot. I also don't hang around with people who smoke tobacco, drink alcohol excessively, or gorge on sugary food. While I personally find all that distasteful, I think it would be ridiculous to criminalize any of it. Apparently we learned nothing from prohibition. Since the war on drugs has gone so well, government entities are now going after new criminals, like people drinking soda from a big gulp. The next step after this will be to pass an ordinance against excessive breathing of the air. After all, breathing produces CO2. Every breath you take kills a baby polar bear.
 
hindsight2020 said:
The real problem for us is that these outlier outcomes will be utilized as justification for the need to continue to fund their paramilitary day hobby of restricting, accosting and scrutinize/penalizing our activity as cross-country/international recreational flyers. We're all criminals in the eyes of CBP. I don't know how any member or Air and Marine can say they're friends of GA with a straight face. That Nuremberg defense crap doesn't sit well with me.
Click to expand...


What's the "Nuremberg defense"? Haven't heard of that.
 
The guns. The money ,the aircraft. Nota bad haul fora couple of hundred lbs of weed. Hope he had a prescription for it.
 
timwinters said:
.This case was investigated by..., the Air and Marine Operations Center (AMOC) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ....
Click to expand...


Is that the paramilitary outfit that was ramping innocent pilots with abandon two years ago?
 
RJM62 said:
Now that I have a hard time believing.

Rich
Click to expand...


Sorry, I had just woken up and picked up my phone and saw this thread. I get the "We were just following orders" defense, but in my initial read of the post, I thought the poster was applying that to the perps, not the Border Patrol. Obviously, I was sorely mistaken.

This is why I don't fly at 6:00 am. I'm not the sharpest in the morning, at least not before some coffee.

Let's just forget that I asked that stupid question, OK? :)
 
JHW said:
that guy deserved to be arrested, if he's so stupid as to use a cherokee 6 for a job that a dodge caravan can do. Airplanes are magnets for attention. California to missouri isn't exactly crossing a border or an ocean
Click to expand...


??? I've flown from MO to CA (and back) many times and have never as much as been questioned by anyone about anything. I would think your opportunities for contact with the law would be exponentially higher with a Dodge Caravan.

Along that line, I always scratch my head when I read about police seizing large quantities of drugs found because they pulled over a vehicle for speeding, a broken light, tailgating, etc. Once every few years I'll realize I don't have my wallet with me when I'm on a trip across town and I'm careful to not go 1 mph over the limit. If I was trafficking drugs I'd be 1 mph below the limit.
 
JHW said:
I don't want people around me who smoke pot. I also don't hang around with people who smoke tobacco, drink alcohol excessively, or gorge on sugary food. While I personally find all that distasteful, I think it would be ridiculous to criminalize any of it. Apparently we learned nothing from prohibition. Since the war on drugs has gone so well, government entities are now going after new criminals, like people drinking soda from a big gulp. The next step after this will be to pass an ordinance against excessive breathing of the air. After all, breathing produces CO2. Every breath you take kills a baby polar bear.
Click to expand...

Amen!!!!....to all that. :yes:
 
As for the implications that this guy did nothing wrong and the feds are out of line, I disagree. While I don't think pot should be illegal this guy knows that it is and he knew what he was doing and willingly broke the law. I feel the same way about that as I do for people getting speeding tickets in areas where the speed limit is absurdly low. It's not right, but at least the law is universally applied. (well, unless you have a badge)

What I can't figure out is that so many people have wanted pot legalized for so long - so why is it still illegal?
 
frfly172 said:
The guns. The money ,the aircraft. Nota bad haul fora couple of hundred lbs of weed. Hope he had a prescription for it.
Click to expand...

Not a couple hundred pounds. $1800 is more like 6oz. More like personal use than trafficking.

oops, nevermind
 
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^^There was 202lbs of weed AND $1,800 cash, not $1,800 worth of weed. I understand that a lot of people are for the legalization of marijuana, and it will probably be legalized soon. However, at the time it's illegal, he knew it was illegal, and still did it to make a profit so I don't feel bad for him one bit.

I seriously doubt this was a random check, I would almost guarantee there was an informant, just like there are on a lot of the traffic stops that lead to huge drug busts.
 
I'm sure I relayed this here before but I so enjoy repeating myself...

One of the most fun traps that the Mo Highway Patrol ever set up was on I-44 at an exit in the Ft. Leonard Wood...Rolla area. The exit led absolutely nowhere. It served maybe two or three farms on a short dead end road. And, it was a blind exit, you really couldn't see what was at the top of the overpass when you were eastbound on 44.

So they'd erect a big reader board sign about a mile before the exit that read "drug checkpoint 3 miles ahead" (or something like that).

And they would be sitting at the top of the exit ramp waiting for drug runners to take the exit to avoid the check point ahead. They caught drug runners for years at this trap. I was amazed it worked for so long and the word didn't spread more quickly of this trap.

Once, when we were in college, we heard it was active so we drove out, parked on the other side of the bridge (at the top of the westbound exit) and watched the fun for a few hours on a nice day. IIRC they busted 5 runners that afternoon.
 
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