Prosecutor blames bingo habit in drug conviction

A shot of Stoli for each buzzword?

A shot of Stoli for each buzzword?

After an Al Gore speech you'd be dead of alcohol poisoning.

A 61-year-old woman found with a trunkful of marijuana was convicted of drug running in what prosecutors said was an attempt to earn cash for a bingo habit.

If only bingo was legal she wouldn't have had to resort to this.

What comes to mind as an old episode of ROSEANNE, where she gets hooked on Bingo. I can see where the game might be addictive.

<<"I didn't want to wet your bingo card!">>

lol lol lol

Bingo problem? Probably a bong problem.

"Bingo, huh? I'm guessing that much in bulk is worth over 100K."

Odds are it wasn't her pot. Depending on how far she was taking it and how well her handlers pay she was probably making anywhere from $1,500 plus expenses on up to $10,000 or maybe even a little bit more than that. The article mentioned "drug running," kind of like running moonshine. Loads around this size are popped on interstate highways all the time. This was a Hispanic lady stopped by State Troopers on the highway with a trunk full of pot. In most cases when that happens the person is a drug mule, someone paid to transport drugs she doesn't own. Every year thousands of pounds come off the highway just in the county where I work, and over the years I've actually handled thousands of pounds worth of these cases as a public defender. People driving down the highway with trunk loads of pot almost never own it themselves. The people who do actually own it make enough money to pay people to take that risk for them. If they sell 200 pounds for $500 a pound they'll make $100,000 for it. It might even be cheaper than that in Arizona not far from where the pot had been sitting in a safe house after being smuggled from Mexico, but generally the farther east it goes the higher the price goes. They pay far less for it than what they sell it for and can afford to pay someone a few grand to transport it for them. Shoot, they make enough that they can afford to lose the occasional load.

Marijuana is a huge business. There are an awful lot of cars carrying pot down our highways at any given time. You've probably driven past several of them. The government last estimated that there were between 12,000 and 25,000 metric tons of marijuana on the market in this country in I think it was 2003 or 2004. A metric ton is about 2,205 pounds. Some is transported in loads in the neighborhood of a ton or two in tractor trailers, but more is probably transported in smaller personal vehicles, cars, trucks, motor homes, whatever. Bigger loads are risky because trucks are often inspected and losing a two ton load hurts the owner a lot more financially than losing a couple of hundred pounds. Loads in cars are commonly in the two or three hundred pound range depending on how much the product is compressed. Every time one gets popped in my county I have to wonder how many more loads passed by while they were messing with the one on the side of the road. At least in my area Mexican pot is as cheap as it's been in more than twenty years.

Usually marijuana mules are going to get more money the farther they have to transport a load, but they generally aren't get rich. They'd make more money with a steady job driving a Budweiser truck. Most popped in my county end up with the public defender and often they can't even make bond money. If they were making tons of money you'd think they'd be able to bond out and would hire high priced attorneys. If they were actually important to these criminal organizations they're transporting product for you'd think the criminal organizations would at least get money to lawyers for them and get them bond money. The fact is though that drug mules are a dime a dozen. They're expendable. There seems to be a never ending supply of them. We have a couple of hundred million people who can drive in this country and there are always going to be some who are both stupid enough and either greedy or desperate enough to agree to drive down the highway with a load of dope in their trunk.

This lady may very well get a break, but the reason she'll get it is that she's old. Prosecutors don't like to give someone a life sentence for something as minor in the grand scheme of things as being one of the countless idiots who drive down our highways transporting drugs, especially when it's just marijuana. The prisons don't really want people of advanced age to take care of either because of the extra expense. She might get a little less time than most carrying the same weight, or she might even get just probation. There are a lot of places where a drug mule carrying a load of pot is likely to get probation, even a 200 pound load. And there some places of course where these people get sentences you would think would be more appropriate for drug kingpins. She wouldn't get probation in my area but around here the more money people come up with the better deal they're going to get on a case like this. They might just spend a few months in for that much pot before paroling out or two or three years if they plead without several grand paid at or before the time of the plea. I think that goes on in a lot of places. If these people go to trial though they'd probably get a lot more time. Few go to trial.

Whether she had a bingo problem or not doesn't really mean anything. She may very well have had a bingo problem. It happens, but more often than not these bingo halls also have slot machines too and a lot of people who "play bingo" really play the slots. Gambling addiction is real. I've certainly had clients with that problem. What's even worse though is when they are both hooked on gambling and a drug like meth. They can stay up for days gambling and when they steal for their habits they're likely to steal a lot. Being a drug addict or a gambling addict or both does not excuse your criminal conduct though.

Good post, I hand't considered the "mule" possibility, which is quite likely, now that you mention it.

On gambling addiction: I eat luch at a casino buffet a couple times a month. Each time I go, the same silver-haired, chin-smoking retirees are there. None are smiling or appear to be having fun. The drop quarters (or dollars) in the machines like machines themselves.

I know gambling addiction affects more than the elderly but you rally notice how many elderly it affects when you hit the casinos during the work-day.

Yeah, my mother in law goes a couple of times a week, playing bingo and the slots. Every once in a while she'll win several thousand dollars, but I'm sure she spends a lot more than she wins. I hate casinos. I went to a couple on my honeymoon just to see what they were like back fourteen years ago, and since then I've been only been a couple more times when I had conferences to go to that happened to be held at casinos. I can see how people would get hooked on it. I could see how I could get hooked on it. I'd just as soon stay out of those places.

"I'd just as soon stay out of those places."

Me too. As my former employer used to quip, "Life's gamble enough for me."