Rufus Daniel “RD” Curington Jr., 71, of Vernon, Florida, was sentenced on 2 October 2012 in federal court in Panama City to 15 years in prison for his role in a large-scale marijuana trafficking organization, after pleading guilty in July to marijuana-trafficking conspiracy and possessing firearms in furtherance of it.[1][2] From August 2009 until his arrest that February, Curington and his accomplices received four to five tons of marijuana from a Mexican drug-trafficking organization, storing shipments and drug proceeds at stash houses in and around Vernon for distribution across northern and central Florida, with cash carried to Texas and on into Mexico.[1][2]

Eleven people had been arrested on 6 February 2012, when officers executed search warrants at four properties and found a tractor-trailer load of over 2,700 pounds of marijuana off-loaded into a shed, alongside 61 firearms and more than $500,000 in cash across the searches.[3][2] At Curington’s own residence officers seized about $156,000 in drug proceeds bound for Texas and three firearms he used to protect the operation.[1][2]