About 40 miles north of Atlanta, law enforcement officials said they investigated a pair of Forsyth County residents for a month. In the end, police served two search warrants and and said they found 10 pounds of marijuana and more than $20,000 in cash from the residences of the man and woman.
Now the two face drug distribution charges involving what officials claim were regular, weekly shipments of “large amounts of marijuana, 10 pounds or more,” shipped into the county from Colorado and California.
Last Thursday, police searched the Cumming home of a 24-year-old man and then took him into custody after finding 10 pounds of marijuana and $19,360 in cash. He is accused of marijuana trafficking, manufacturing a Schedule I drug (hashish) and possession of a Schedule I drug.
The next day, a 30-year-old Cumming woman was arrested after a search warrant was served at her home. Investigators seized nearly $5,300 in cash during the raid in which she was taken into custody on a charge of intent to distribute marijuana.
Officials said their monthlong investigation was prompted by an anonymous tip.
While some might read of those arrests and conclude that the two face long periods of incarceration, they should consider that a man recently tried on cocaine trafficking charges in Carroll County was acquitted after a jury heard from three witnesses: all called by state prosecutors.
If convicted, the man faced a mandatory 25 years in prison, plus a $1 million fine.
He was arrested more than a year ago after a police officer claimed he saw the man throw a one-pound brick of cocaine out of a car on an interstate highway in the county.
But the man’s defense attorney pointed out to the jury that police evidence was lacking: no DNA or fingerprints tied the suspect to the drugs, and there was no video or audio linking him to the roadside package.
After the jury delivered its verdict, the man was released from custody.
Source: Cumming Patch, “Search Warrants Net 10 Pounds of Pot, Hash, Nearly $25K in Forsyth,” by Brande Poulnot, Nov. 18, 2013Times-Georgian, “Defendant found not guilty of coke trafficking,” Nov. 5, 2013