TACOMA, Wash. -- A federal judge has given a millionaire marijuana smuggler a prison sentence likely to send shock waves through the nation's pot smoking community -- 40 years without possibility of parole.
Judge Jack Tanner also fined the defendant, Robert Sterling, $225,000 and ordered forfeiture of his two Florida homes worth $1.5 million, his Swiss bank account, interest in two corporations and 'any other assets acquired by him between 1971 and 1981.' The sentence was pronounced Friday.
Sterling, a 39-year-old film producer from New York and Florida, is a first offender. He was convicted Aug. 13 of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise that imported marijuana from Colombia for a decade, mainly to the East Coast.
Sterling's attorney, Michael Pollack of New York, urged a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years. Pollack cited Sterling's contributions to the arts and said he did not deal in more dangerous drugs such as cocaine or heroin.
But the judge said, 'It seems to me the people of the United States still think marijuana is not beneficial to this country.'
Tanner said it was the intent of Congress that 'drastic sentences' be imposed on persons engaging in continuing criminal enterprises.
Other marijuana traders might reconsider their actions, said U.S. Attorney Jerry Diskin, 'if they know they could lose everything they gain by their labor and also spend a long time in prison.'
Sterling was arrested following seizure of 18 tons of marijuana July 28, 1981, and the arrests of two dozen others at Bellingham and Mount Vernon, Wash.
The prosecution said Sterling masterminded an operation in which a Honduran 'mother ship' in international waters passed illegal cargo to small 'runner' boats going into Bellingham Bay. The mother ship later was seized by the Coast Guard off the coast of Southern California.
Defense attorneys said the sentence was unprecedented for a first offender and they would appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
