Man sentenced for selling synthetic marijuana at Delavan store

http://www.gazettextra.com/20170206/man_sentenced_for_selling_synthetic_marijuana_at_delavan_store

MILWAUKEE—The man who owned the Delavan Smoke Shop and sold pounds of synthetic marijuana as incense will serve five years of supervised release with nine months of home confinement, a judge decided.

David Yarmo, 49, pleaded guilty in November to selling a misbranded drug in 2014 and money laundering charges.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman handed down his sentence Friday in federal court in Milwaukee.

Both offenses stemmed from his selling packages of aromatic potpourri that did not list the controlled substance AB-Fubinaca as an ingredient. He also wrote a check to his supplier using money earned from prior sales of the packages.

According to a memo filed with the court by Yarmo’s attorney, John Markham of Boston:

In 2006, Yarmo bought the business at 127 Park Place, which was frequented by police officers, attorneys and judges.

Yarmo was a valued member of the community, operating a store that had 10 full- and part-time employees at one time. The store sponsored concerts in a local park and had donated sound equipment to the city’s park and recreation department.

In September 2012, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized Yarmo’s incense inventory, valued at $100,000, alleging it contained a drug similar in chemical structure to a controlled substance.

Yarmo sued to get his inventory returned, arguing that it did not contain a banned substance. However, in May 2013, before the court could rule on Yarmo’s request, the DEA listed a substance in his inventory as a controlled substance, and the court concluded it could not return it to him.

In February 2014, the DEA listed AB-Fubinaca as a controlled substance. On April 4, 2014, the DEA and local law enforcement returned to Yarmo’s shop and seized packages that contained AB-Fubinaca.

Yarmo had bought 778 pounds of “aromatic potpourri,” which contained AB-Fubinaca, between Feb. 26 and March 28, 2014, according to the plea agreement.

The DEA also seized the balances of two of Yarmo’s bank accounts, totaling $776,097, contending they were obtained from the sale of controlled substances.

Yarmo agreed to forfeit $404,802, the store’s checking account balance, which was obtained from AB-Fubinaca sales received after it was listed as a controlled substance. The government returned the store’s $371,295 savings account balance to Yarmo.

Yarmo maintained that he did not know AB-Fubinaca had become illegal to possess, but he conceded that the government did not have to prove he knew that AB-Fubinaca was a controlled substance, only that he was selling a substance the government could prove he knew contained AB-Fubinaca.

The Smoke Shop was closed by court order in a nuisance lawsuit the city of Delavan filed in Walworth County Court.

Yarmo has since opened a store in Harvard, Illinois, but sells no loose incense products. Residency law requires him to live there, but he commutes to the Delavan area to be with his family, Markham said.

Markham had asked Adelman for a probation-only sentence, arguing that Yarmo was unaware that AB-Fubinaca had been listed as a controlled substance only seven weeks before his store was searched.

Filed under: General Problems