February 4, 2016
By Paul Joseph, Paragon Communications News Director –
The third of three people from Arizona was recently sentenced to prison on drug charges.
23-year-old Robert Mar-Chavez pleaded no contest to trafficking in illegal drugs and was sentenced in Custer County District Court to four years in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. All three are from Phoenix.
In January of 2015, Mar-Chavez was a passenger in a 2014 Kia traveling eastbound on Interstate 40 when an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper conducted a traffic stop on the car for a traffic violation. A court probable cause affidavit at the time said the driver was doing 74 in a 70 mile per hour zone.
The driver was identified as 34-year-old Shane Christian Geant. During the traffic stop and subsequent interview with the driver, the trooper discovered 210 compressed, brick bundles of marijuana in the Kia. According to the affidavit, the OHP trooper noticed irregularities in Geant’s answers and called for a drug dog from the Custer County Sheriff’s department. The dog, Ares, alerted for illegal drugs in the vehicle.
Mar-Chavez, Geant and another passenger, 26-year-old Allison Ray Gerke were placed under arrest for trafficking in illegal drugs and possession of drug paraphernalia and booked into the Custer County Jail.
Geant pled guilty in September to trafficking in illegal drugs and sentenced to six years in prison while Gerke also pled no contest to possession of a controlled, dangerous substance with intent to distribute. She received a 3-year deferred sentence until December 3, 2018.
In all, the traffic stop yielded 306 pounds of marijuana valued around $200-thousand-dollars.
The illegal drugs were thought to be headed to St. Louis from Phoenix.
- 30 -