73 Year Old Granny Turns Out to Be Bible Belt’s Top Drug Kingpin
One of the Bible Belt’s biggest marijuana kingpins was arrested this weekend right between bingo night at the local church and an episode of Murder She Wrote. OK, so those might not be the exact details in the case, but a 73 year old grandmother’s home was raided over the weekend and she has been tabbed as the mastermind of a marijuana distribution ring that spanned four states including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri.
Darlene Mayes will be looking for a federal crimes attorney after police raided her Oklahoma home, finding 4 pounds of marijuana and over $276,000 dollars in cash stashed around the house. Mayes was also carrying a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver at the time of her arrest.
Police estimate that Mayes was responsible for supplying nearly 40% of all marijuana in the 4 state area by using a network of drug dealers, including her own son – who was also arrested in the raid.
Because the operation allegedly spanned multiple states, the federal government is likely to be the ones prosecuting the case rather than the state courts.
The federal criminal court system is much different than the state court system.
If convicted in federal court, a defendant’s sentence is typically much harsher than someone convicted of a similar crime in a state court. A person convicted in federal court will also likely serve a much longer percentage of the sentence than someone convicted in state court.
At 73 years of age, it’s not clear how many years Mayes allegedly had been running the drug ring or how many years she could be facing if convicted.
