Sheriff's Dept. Charges Man With No Drugs With 'Intent To Distribute Counterfeit Controlled Substances'

from the if-you-don't-like-punishment,-don't-not-break-the-rules dept

Live a clean life and the cops should leave you alone, right? RIGHT?!? Harvey Silverglate wasn't being facetious when he wrote "Three Felonies A Day." There are all sorts of laws waiting to be broken, laws that boggle the mind in their insipidity.

As we covered recently, the FBI arrested one of its own handcrafted "terrorists" for "conspiring" to materially aid a terrorist organization. This "conspiring" apparently took the form of the suspect talking about possibly joining a terrorist group and, with undercover agents' urging, traveling to Canada to fill out some sort of terrorist job application. He was arrested at the border, having really done nothing more than talk big and wear the "rube" label really well.

More recently, Techdirt covered Judge Otis Wright's beration of the ATF for setting up stooges to pull off a fake crime -- a conspiracy to rob a "stash house." Of course, the stash house didn't exist, but this didn't stop the government from bringing criminal charges against the "criminals" and seeking sentences based on the entirely fictional contents of the fictional house. The ATF told its stooges that the house contained 20-25 kilos of coke in the house. Judge Wright asked why not just say 10, or 100 or 1,000, as long as the government's just making up numbers? No crime here because said "stash house" simply didn't exist and yet, people were arrested and put on trial.

Here's another case of no criminal activity somehow turning into a crime in the hands of zealous law enforcement officers who apparently couldn't handle not getting the drug bust they were obviously seeking. (via Reason)

Deputies said they stopped Delbert Dewayne Galbreath at NW 10th Street and Interstate 44 for a broken brake light. The deputy said Galbreath admitted he did not have a license to drive. Two deputies asked to search his car and he agreed.

A deputy found a cigarette pouch that had 16 pieces of a rock-like form, which authorities generally associate as crack cocaine. The deputies said they also found a digital scale.

Authorities tested the rocks and said they did not contain cocaine. When they asked Galbreath what the rocks were, he said they were Scentsy.
Galbreath was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to distribute imitation controlled dangerous substance (CDS), possession of drug paraphernalia, driving under a revoked license and defective equipment.

Read that again: a man was arrested for not possessing drugs. Note the oddly specific denial. The man said they were "Scentsy." This doesn't sound like someone just blurting out the first thing that came to mind when deputies searched his vehicle.

If you're not familiar with Scentsy, it's a direct marketing company that specializes in "wickless candles," which are scented wax cubes that are warmed on its proprietary warmers. (All images taken from Scentsy's catalog unless otherwise noted)

Here's how the process works.


Here's a shot of a couple of Scentsy cubes sitting in a warmer with a vaguely scale-like shape.


Here's some more scale-esque warmers Scentsy offers.


And here's another scale-like warmer that's included in every Scentsy starter kit.


And here's some vaguely crack-colored wax sitting in a Scentsy warmer.


And for comparison's sake, here's a DEA file photo of crack cocaine.


So, this seems like an entirely plausible explanation. The plausibility factor shoots way up when you factor in the negative test results. But rather than investigate whether Galbreath's claims were accurate after the "NOT COCAINE" determination, the deputies ran with their original plan: nail Galbreath for drug dealing. Instead of dealing drugs, Galbreath was trying to sell fake drugs, which is completely indistinguishable from actual criminal activity when you're sitting in a jail cell.

Maybe the Sheriff's Dept. is hoping to sweat out some more info from the jailed "dealer," like who his pissed off customers are or who's further up the chain supplying him with fake drugs and taking a percentage of each sale he makes. (My hunch? A regional director in Oklahoma as well as any number of intermediaries along the direct marketing food chain.)

"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time," they say. But they somehow fail to add, "Don't NOT do the crime if you can't do the time," because everyday citizens like you and me might find that statement baffling, horrifying and complete bullshit.