Friday, October 16, 2015

80-year-old marijuana dealer pleads guilty in federal court

 
 Marshall Dion
Junction City Police Department



Document: Charges against Marshall Dion 



He owned houses in Massachusetts, Colorado, and Arizona, had $11 million stashed in a North Reading storage facility, and once crawled away from a plane crash in Wisconsin as thousands of dollars in cash (suspected drug profits) floated through the air around him.

But his dramatic exploits came to an end Thursday, when 80-year-old Marshall Herbert Dion, wearing tan prison clothing, shuffled to the witness stand to plead guilty to running a massive marijuana-dealing and money-laundering operation.

Under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Dion could serve 5 to 7 years in federal prison, ending a lucrative criminal career that spanned decades until a chance traffic stop in Kansas.

“Over the course of the conspiracy . . . he had sold approximately 3,000 to 10,000 kilograms of marijuana,” Assistant US Attorney Leah Foley said during a brief court hearing.

Dion’s lawyer, Hank Brennan, said later that “Mr. Dion has embraced his responsibility and is looking forward to the next chapter in his life.”

Under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Marshall Herbert Dion could serve 5 to 7 years in federal prison.

Dion’s unraveling began during a traffic stop in Junction City, Kan., in June 2013, when a police officer pulled him over for driving 80 in a 75 m.p.h. zone. During the stop, the officer searched Dion’s beat-up pickup truck and found nearly $850,000 in cash.

The discovery sparked a federal investigation that ultimately led to the discovery of $2 million in a bank account, another $880,000 in an Arizona building, and the storage facility in North Reading, where authorities found 395 pounds of marijuana and $11 million in cash.

Foley told US District Judge Denise Casper that authorities found travel logs that indicate Dion had sold more than 3,000 kilograms of marijuana — and possibly as many as 10,000 kilograms — dating back to 1992.

Dion’s decision to plead guilty Thursday caps a lengthy criminal career. He was convicted in Massachusetts in the late 1980s of drug trafficking after authorities in Boston found about 180 pounds of marijuana in a 1986 Chrysler sedan. Police later found 101 pounds of marijuana stashed in a commercial storage building in Lynnfield.

A Boston police spokesman told the Globe at the time that “apparently he has houses all over New England. He’s a major operator, there’s no question.”

After the plane crash in Wisconsin in 1985, Dion was found crawling through a muddy field, though he denied that the $112,000 in cash found inside the plane and floating through the air was his.

For Dion’s latest exploits, Casper could sentence him to prison for a term ranging from 60 to 87 months for conspiracy to deal marijuana, possession with intent to deal marijuana, and money laundering, under the deal he reached with prosecutors. He had faced a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison if he had been convicted in a trial. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 11.

Under the plea agreement, however, Dion’s conviction and guilty plea would be vacated if he is successful in an appeal he is pursuing before a higher court. That appeal is based on what he calls an unconstitutional search of his truck after the traffic stop in Kansas.

Dion told Casper that he agreed with everything Foley said about him in court Thursday excepttwo things: That the Kansas officer had a reason to stop him for speeding, and that he consented to the search of the truck.

“There’s no way the officer could have known if I was speeding, even if I was, which I wasn’t,” Dion said.

Then he added, “There’s no way I would have agreed to a search of my property.”

- Source:  https://www.bostonglobe.com

Kenosha County Sheriff’s Deputy Cathy Baxter can’t imagine having more fun on the job.

Covered in mud from head to toe and holding thousands of dollars, Baxter will never forget perhaps the most memorable night of her career when she responded to a single-engine plane crash near Highway E and Interstate 94 on Nov. 1, 1985.

“We spent most of the night out there in that field,” Baxter said. “I remember everyone laughing and giggling as we stuffed over $110,000 into garbage bags.”

Marshall Dion, the pilot of the plane, was in an ambulance and being treated by paramedics for two broken ankles when deputies arrived. The severely damaged plane contained several leather bags holding an estimated $200,000. Bills of all denominations floated in the crisp, fall breeze and were scattered throughout the field.

Dion, a 50-year-old Portland, Maine, resident at the time, told detectives he was unaware of the large amount of cash.

“He said, ‘What money? I don’t have any money’,” Baxter said.

When a scale with marijuana residue was seized, authorities tied the cash to drug trafficking, according to Baxter. Deputies bagged over $110,000 that night and used the money to purchase the department’s first mobile command emergency response vehicle.

The rest of the cash was an early Christmas present for nearby farmers, according to Baxter.

“The next day I’m sure there were all kind of gawkers, but I bet the farmers were out early enough to pick up everything,” Baxter said. “It was farmer’s aid for the year. They were able to keep it because it was on their property. (Dion) claimed it wasn’t his.”


Heard the crash


James Fonk, 76, owned the property. He said his son John notified him of the crash and his wife Frances, 74, made the 911 call.

“I was in the basement and John was upstairs, and he said, ‘I just heard a plane crash,’” James said in a telephone call from his winter home in Sebring, Fla. “I said, ‘You’re full of (crap).’

“I saw some lights about a half-mile away. I backed my truck out of the driveway and I see a guy crawling up the road on his hands and knees. I had to park my truck in the road so nobody would hit him.”

James said he helped Dion, who asked him to quickly retrieve items out of his plane.

“I went down there with a farmer’s flashlight, about as dim as they get, and I found a suitcase,” James said. “I pull it out and there’s a pile of money next to it. I was like, holy (crap). I took an old blanket of his and started throwing (all the money) in there, and the cops pulled up right away. They told me I better put it on the ground; this is a crime scene now.”

Kenosha County Sheriff’s detectives took over the investigation as deputies — wearing borrowed raincoats and boots from the Paris Fire Department — scooped up bills like kids on an Easter egg hunt.


Dion arrested again

Baxter, 63, spent 15 years with the department before retiring in 1995. She was surprised when a Boston writer contacted her on Nov. 17 and inquired about that memorable evening.

It appears Dion didn’t let a plane crash slow business. Dion was convicted of drug trafficking in 1989 when Boston police discovered over 100 pounds of marijuana in his car.

He ran into the law again last summer when he was reportedly pulled over speeding in a beat-up pickup truck in Junction City, Kan.

Dion, 79, told police he was a retiree from Tucson, Ariz., living off his $690-per-month Social Security check. Police reportedly found $828,220 inside his truck and used a GPS device to track his steps to a self-storage facility in North Reading, Mass.

Authorities there found $11.5 million in cash, more than 168 pounds of marijuana and records of customers, amounts of marijuana sold and cash balances in the storage unit.

“I was shocked,” Baxter said. “I thought he was in prison all this time. Unbelievable.”

Dion’s attorney, Henry Brennan, is arguing the police stop and search of Dion’s truck was illegal and everything they found as a result cannot be used against him.

According to public records, Dion has resided in Boston; Portland, Maine; Grand Junction, Colo.; and Tucson, Ariz.

Dion will likely never forget his short trip to Kenosha.

“We went and visited him in the hospital,” James Fonk said. “The people he was there with were kind of seedy looking. We ended up leaving because my wife was afraid they were going to come look for us because there was some money missing.”


- Source:  http://www.kenoshanews.com

http://registry.faa.gov/N92302

NTSB Identification: CHI86LA022.
The docket is stored on NTSB microfiche number 29497.
Accident occurred Friday, November 01, 1985 in KENOSHA, WI
Aircraft: CESSNA 182N, registration: N92302
Injuries: 1 Serious.

NTSB investigators may not have traveled in support of this investigation and used data provided by various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.

ACCORDING TO THE PILOT THE FLIGHT FROM TOLEDO TO THE KENOSHAAREA WAS UNEVENTFUL. DURING THE VOR APPROACH TO RWY 14 (APPROX 2 MILES FROM THE END OF THE RUNWAY) THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE GROUND AND WAS DESTROYED. THE PILOT STATED THAT THE LAST THING HE REMBERED BEFORE IMPACT WAS SEEING 1100 FEET MSL ON HIS ALTIMETER. HE WAS USING THE CORRECT ALTIMETER SETTING. THE ALTIMETER WAS LATER GIVEN A COMPLETE SCALE ERROR CHECK AT AN INDEPENDENT AVIONICS REPAIR FACILITY. THE RESULTS OF THIS TEST INDICATED AN ERROR RANGE OF -400 FT AT A SIMULATED ALTITUDE OF 1000 FT TO -950 FT AT A SIMULATED ALTITUDE OF 20000 FT. IT IS A NON-ENCODING ALTIMETER AND WAS LAST CHECKED BY A CERTIFIED REPAIR STATION APPROXIMATELY 19 MONTHS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:


MAINTENANCE, INSPECTION ... NOT OBTAINED ... PILOT IN COMMAND

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:
MAINTENANCE, CALIBRATION ... NOT OBTAINED ... PILOT IN COMMAND

Contributing Factors

FLIGHT/NAV INSTRUMENTS, ALTIMETER...FALSE INDICATION

No comments:

Post a Comment