A Riverton jelly-maker has pleaded guilty to having meth and conspiring to deal it.
Mary Renee Weymouth, 63, is scheduled to be sentenced in Cheyenne’s U.S. District Court for Wyoming on July 14, under the terms of a plea agreement made last week that federal prosecutors have not made public.
Court documents say she sold jelly at the Fremont County farmer’s market, and picked up meth and discarded dumpster marijuana during a journey to Las Vegas.
Weymouth gave guilty pleas April 24 in Cheyenne, to one count of possessing meth while intending to distribute it, and another of conspiring to distribute meth and marijuana.
While those charges can be punishable by between five and 40 years in prison each plus fines, plea agreements often limit the length of prison term for which a prosecutor can argue at sentencing.
Weymouth was originally charged in the state court system in Fremont County, Wyoming, in November, but her case went federal when she was indicted in January.
Her co-defendant Cathy Gordon, 54, was also indicted federally in January.
Gordon established a March 21 plea agreement, also not made public, and is set for a June 18 sentencing in the Cheyenne federal court.
She pleaded guilty to possessing meth while intending to distribute it (punishable by five to 40 years when no plea agreement limits sentencing) and carrying a gun in relation to a drug trafficking crime (up to five years without an agreement limit).
First The Jelly
Weymouth’s jelly booth at the local farmer’s market was where Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Ryan Wangberg gained her contact information last fall, court documents say.
Wangberg also believed from an earlier investigation that Weymouth was selling meth, he testified at her Nov. 19 preliminary hearing.
She gave him her business card at the farmer’s market, he added.
Posing as a drug buyer, Wangberg started texting Weymouth on Oct. 29, he testified.
On Oct. 31, she called him and told him he’d receive another phone call within the next hour.
“If she doesn’t call you within the next hour let me know and I’ll take care of it,” Weymouth said, according to Wangberg’s testimony.
About 15 minutes later, another woman who called herself “Crystal” called. Wangberg let another agent speak with her, he told the court.
The undercover agent and “Crystal” talked about costs and amounts. She said a “zip,” or an ounce, of meth would cost $700, according to Wangberg’s testimony.
Wangberg launched into another long text conversation, this time with the woman who called herself “Crystal.”
Meanwhile, he wrote a search warrant to obtain cellphone ping location data on Weymouth’s phone.
The phone was in Las Vegas on Nov. 1, where Wangberg believed Weymouth had a drug source, he testified.
Ten days later, the phone’s pings showed it was returning to Wyoming and also texting with the phone number associated with “Crystal.”
“I had a pretty good idea it wasn’t Crystal,” said Wangberg. “The female had sent a picture of herself to me.”
He researched the phone number and photograph and identified the woman as Gordon
That Reek
DCI agents followed the pings to Shoshoni, to Gordon’s house.
One agent was already in the area. Wangberg arrived sometime later to find a white Nissan Frontier truck attached to an 8-foot trailer, he said.
In the bed of the truck sat multiple baskets of pomegranates, Wangberg testified. He seemed unsurprised by this, adding that Gordon, alias “Crystal,” had texted Wangberg earlier that they were picking pomegranates.
He also saw “a bunch of cookie tins” and a white Styrofoam cooler in the bed of the truck. All these contained raw marijuana, Wangberg noted.
“Standing outside in the street where the truck and trailer were parked you could smell the raw marijuana,” he said.
Weymouth consented to the search of her truck and trailer, the agent said. She also admitted to having nearly 6 pounds of meth, he added.
Wangberg said agents also seized about 29 pounds of raw marijuana, albeit cut with mulch and other substances.
Dumpster Diving
An interesting thing about the marijuana, said Wangberg, is that it may have been the product of some rigorous dumpster diving.
Weymouth had told him the prior night that she and someone else had gotten the marijuana out of dumpsters, the agent said.
“I heard in a training that in different states where marijuana is legal, dispensaries will dispose of marijuana and sometimes mix it with a mulch or some chemical to deter people from going in the dumpsters and retrieving it,” said Wangberg. “Some (of this marijuana) appeared to be mixed with more mulch and (in) trash bags.”
It looked like Weymouth’s claim of dumpster diving for marijuana was accurate, Wangberg observed in court.
Weymouth’s public defense attorney Zachary Mahlum at first cast doubt upon this find, asking whether agents tested the marijuana to see whether it was actually hemp, which he indicated could be used as mulch.
Wangberg later clarified that agents field-tested some of the meth, and the marijuana, and they tested positive for those substances respectively.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
