SACRAMENTO, Calif. - John James Kash, 53, of Redding, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller to six and a half years in prison for conspiracy to distribute marijuana, manufacturing marijuana, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced.
Kash was convicted on Nov. 18, 2015, after a six-day jury trial. The evidence at trial demonstrated that Kash was part of an interstate marijuana trafficking conspiracy that diverted marijuana from California to Pennsylvania from 2009 through 2013. Kash was arrested in 2013 after being found in a warehouse in Redding, California that had been converted into an indoor marijuana grow. The warehouse contained four separate marijuana grow rooms with plants in various stages of development to allow for year-round marijuana production.
Kash and his co-conspirators shipped marijuana that had been grown in the Redding area to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Kash, a native of Pennsylvania, coordinated the marijuana distribution in the Pittsburgh area. In May 2013, Kash and co-defendant James Massery shipped 158 one-pound bags of marijuana concealed within shrink-wrapped barrels from California to Pennsylvania. Kash and co-conspirators Massery, Glen Meyers, and Aimee Burgess were all arrested in Pennsylvania as they were unloading the marijuana from the barrels.
Kash recruited his family and friends to assist with the concealment and transport of the cash proceeds of drug trafficking. During an eight-month period between August 2010 and April 2011, Kash and others attempted to launder $382,000 in drug proceeds through credit unions in Pittsburgh and Redding. Kash was arrested in May 2012 in Utah attempting to drive $60,000 in cash from Pittsburgh to Redding.
The United States ultimately seized approximately $1 million in drug proceeds from various bank accounts and other assets that Kash and his co-conspirators controlled.
This case was the product of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation and the Sacramento Valley Financial Crimes Task Force, with assistance from the Pennsylvania State Police, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Drug Enforcement Administration, Pennsylvania’s Washington County Drug Task Force, and the Utah Highway Patrol. Assistant United States Attorneys Michele Beckwith, Christiaan Highsmith, Kevin Khasigian, and Justin Lee prosecuted the case.
Kash is the last of four defendants to be sentenced. Co-defendant Glen Meyers was sentenced to eight years and two months in prison; James Massery was sentenced to six years and three months in prison; and Aimee Burgess was sentenced to five years in prison.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
