Indiana Pastor Sentenced To More Than A Decade Behind Bars For Involvement In Drug Ring
An Indiana pastor has been sentenced to more than a decade in jail for his role in a major synthetic drug ring that involved some of his church members.
Robert Jaynes Jr. was serving as pastor of Irvington Bible Baptist Church in Indianapolis, when he was indicted in 2014.
He has been sentenced to eleven and a half years for his role in the synthetic pot ring, Fox59 reported, after pleading guilty to drug conspiracy charges last year. During the trial, he admitted to producing nearly a ton of synthetic marijuana and mislabeling the controlled substance.
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Jaynes is the first to be sentenced out of 23 people who have been charged in the drug ring conspiracy, which also involved his wife, brother-in-law, two former sheriff's deputies, and a public school teacher. Judge Sippel said the lives of Jaynes' victims "were disrupted, destroyed, altered."
Jaynes' involvement in the synthetic drugs business began after he filed for bankruptcy in 2006 and as his son was about to undergo heart surgery, his lawyer Nanci McCarthy said. At the time of bankruptcy, Jaynes claimed to earn $528 per month, a stark contrast to the $91,000 he claimed to have earned the previous year.
"He was in a more vulnerable situation than he might have been at another time period in his life," McCarthy said, as per IndyStar.
Jaynes started by packaging synthetic drugs made by a former associate in the mortgage business. He eventually moved on to selling the packaged drugs.
Synthetic marijuana, also known as "spice" or K2, is smoked like marijuana. Jaynes, who admitted to mislabeling the packages, sometimes labeled it as "potpourri" or incense.
According to prosecutors, from April 2011 to October 2013, Jaynes sold more than 500,000 packages of synthetic marijuana. Over nine months in 2013 alone, Jaynes grossed $2.6 million in sales, although prosecutors said the total income was probably higher than this.
USA Today reported last year during Jaynes' guilty plea that he remained pastor of the church despite his involvement in the production of synthetic drugs. He kept preaching and telling his congregation to turn away from earthly temptations.
"There were obviously people willing to support you and help you do the right thing," Judge Sippel told Jaynes, according to IndyStar. "You took them and helped them learn to do the wrong thing."
