Updated 1 p.m. Friday: KMAN was able to speak with Junction City Police Chief Tim Brown regarding the plea:
BOSTON (AP) An 80-year-old man has pleaded guilty to running a massive marijuana-dealing and money-laundering operation with a Junction City connection.
The Boston Globe reports (http://bit.ly/1MGmnE6 ) Marshall Dion is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 11 after pleading guilty Thursday under an agreement with prosecutors. He faces up to seven years in prison.
Police pulled Dion over for speeding in Junction City in 2013 and searched his pickup truck, finding nearly $850,000. Investigators later found $2 million in a bank account, $880,000 in an Arizona building and nearly 400 pounds of marijuana and $11 million at a storage facility in North Reading (red’ ding), Massachusetts.
Prosecutors said Dion sold about 6,600 to 22,000 pounds of marijuana dating back to 1992.
Dion maintains police searched his truck unconstitutionally and is appealing. His lawyer says he is embracing his responsibility.
KMAN reported on the traffic stop of Dion, then reportedly of Tucson Arizona, in June of 2013. A Junction City K-9 unit made the traffic stop on a Tuesday morning near milepost 289 on I-70 for a traffic violation, but after developing probable cause the vehicle was searched, with boxes of U-S currency found in the bed of the truck. Dion was booked into the Geary County jail without bond on charges of transportation of drug proceeds and speeding.
