Koch Bros. Duped

[dellinger63]

The billionaire brothers are being 'duped' (not really) into seeking clemency for one Weldon Angelos serving a 55 year sentence for pot sales convictions hence the title, "He'll Rot for Pot". Had that been the whole story I'd be defending them and their actions however like many 'stories' now passing for journalism this 'story' misses pretty much everything.

If the author, Tim Mak, had taken just two minutes to pull the bad guy's Court Docket from the Fed's online PACER system he would have seen the defendant was not only on trial and convicted for 19 counts of marijuana sales, but also 19 counts of gun possession in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, 11 counts of receiving stolen firearms, 7 counts of selling defaced firearms, 12 counts of unlawful transport of firearms and 57 counts of money laundering. Not sure how much money you have to take in to have to launder it 57 times but think it's safe to say the lad wasn't selling dime bags.

Now 55 years for 125 felonies or 5 months for each sounds reasonable to me. If you can't do the time don't do the crime (or in this case 125 crimes).

Meanwhile the Koch brother's might consider doing even the most basic background investigation before throwing money at freeing a 'non-violent' offender. Hopefully all the guns he defaced, transported and sold were used for target practice and deer hunting and grinding off the serial numbers was meant to make the firearms lighter.

Perhaps the author's disclaimer of receiving a 10-week summer fellowship from the Koch's made it impossible for him to impartially pen the story. He should pursue a career in fiction and leave non-fiction to journalists who are diligent enough to spend a couple minutes verifying the facts. Then again facts seem to matter less and less, especially when they interfere with the biased narrative this story and others seek to make. I'm not naïve enough to believe the billionaire brothers knew nothing of the remaining convictions for guns etc. and thru their actions are trying to gain political favor, nothing more and nothing less.

Anyway my hope is sensibility and facts will be triumphant and this criminal will remain behind bars not just for pot, but for the 127 different crimes he committed.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-campaign.html