Last December, Patrick and Barbara Jiron were arrested with an amount of weed that would make Nate Newton blush. The Jiron’s are back on the road and back in the news.
Per NPR
An elderly California couple arrested in Nebraska before Christmas with 60 pounds of marijuana they reportedly told police was slated for holiday gifts are facing fresh charges after being arrested again Tuesday not far away, this time outside Lincoln, on suspicion of carrying drug money.
Patrick Jiron, 80, and his wife, Barbara, 70, of Clearlake Oaks, Calif., appeared at Lancaster County Court on Wednesday for a hearing on charges of possessing $18,000 in drug money, reports The Lincoln Journal Star. They were freed from jail on $2,500 bond a day earlier.
An attorney for Patrick Jiron told the newspaper he did not yet know how the couple would plead and he was looking closely at the case to make sure police did not execute an illegal search.
On Tuesday morning the Jirons were passengers in a vehicle stopped for tailgating on Interstate 80 outside Lincoln, reports the Journal Star, citing the incident report.
The sheriff’s deputy wrote that an unspecified “reasonable, articulable suspicion was obtained that criminal activity was afoot.”
A drug-sniffing dog then led police to the trunk, where they found most of the money in a duffel bag along with traces of marijuana, according to the sheriff’s office.
On Dec. 19, 2017, the Jirons were stopped in nearby York County with some $300,000 worth of marijuana. They reportedly told police they were on their way to Vermont with the goal of distributing the drugs as Christmas gifts and they didn’t know it was illegal to transport marijuana through the state.