| Rory Meeks, from Facebook. |
Rory Meeks lives a daring life. When he’s not busy dodging a raging bull in the rodeo ring as a rodeo clown and bullfighter, he’s also apparently been busy dodging law enforcement around Jones County, Iowa. That is until April of 2011 when he was arrested for cultivating marijuana.
On Friday, Meeks was convicted in a Cedar Rapids federal court on one count of conspiracy to manufacturing marijuana. During the trial, federal prosecutors argued that Meeks had set up grow locations near corn and soybean fields and other hidden spots and spent all summer going around from location to location tending his crops.
According to a news release, Meeks and friends would chop everything down in the fall, trim it and sell it until it was time to plant again. Federal attorneys said that Meeks has been planting every spring since 2004 and grew more than 1,000 frosty green girls until he was busted in 2011.
The Des Moines Register says Meeks was a well-known and popular clown in Iowa City, where he performed for children and local charities. He’s also a badass who, from his Facebook pictures, has no problem jumping in front of several tons of angry cow.
Meeks now faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison with a possibility of life, according to the Register. If he only gets the 20 years and does see the light of day again, he’ll be on supervised release for another 10 years. All said and done, Meeks could cost taxpayers well over $513,000 in incarceration costs alone based on government estimates. Meeks could also see as much as $20 million in fines. That’s no joke, especially for a clown.
Rodeo clowns make anywhere from $100 to $500 per show. At the highest rate, the then 75-year-old Meeks would have to work some 40,000 rodeos to pay off his debts to the government when he gets released. All of this for one man growing a harmless plant. Aren’t their actual drug crimes and cartels out there for law enforcement to focus on?
| Facebook.com |
| Unfortunately, Rory Meeks couldn’t dodge the law as well as he can a bull. |