Featured Image Credit: Lottery handout/Johnson City Police Department
Topics: Money, US News, Crime, True Crime, Drugs
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Money, US News, Crime, True Crime, Drugs
A man who won nearly £3 million in the lottery was jailed after using part of his winnings to finance a drug trafficking ring.
Ronnie Music Jr. won a scratch card in the Georgia lottery in February 2015, taking home a whopping £2.3 million ($3 million).
However, rather than buying a house, a holiday home, going on a clothes shopping spree or a hitting some clubs on a big night out, Music decided to invest his funds - and no, not in property.
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Music used some of his lottery winnings to help front a drug trafficking ring being run from Calhoun State Prison in Georgia - trafficking crystal meth across multiple states.
A number of Music's co-conspirators were arrested in September 2015 attempting to sell over 10 pounds of meth alleged to have been supplied by Music, but Music carried on with his dodgy dealings regardless.
The government said in a court document: "Mr. Music observed the transaction and the bust, but did not stop his involvement in the drug business."
Music was arrested a month later with the help of an informant and found with $22,000 (£17,000) in cash as well as four pounds of meth.
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Upon searching his house and workplace, authorities found 11 firearms 'including assault style weapons, a prohibited sawed off shotgun and a stolen revolver'.
The United States Attorney's Office website states: "As a convicted felon, Music was prohibited from possessing firearms."
Music pled guilty to 'conspiring to traffic large amounts of methamphetamine and to being a felon in possession of firearms'.
On 3 April, 2017, the then-46-year-old was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison.
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Chief US District Judge Lisa Godby Wood - who sentenced Music - said: "You got a windfall that few in this world ever get. Nobody has ever blown lottery winnings in a more dangerous and destructive way than you did."
Acting US Attorney Jim Durham resolved: "This case has received a great deal of light-hearted coverage because of Mr. Music’s unsound investment decision to buy crystal meth with his lottery winnings.
"The truth of the matter is this: Mr. Music is a predator who has destroyed lives by pushing poison and fear.
"As law enforcement and prosecutors, our job is to protect our communities by sending predators like Music to federal prison for a very long time."
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