An Overland Park man recently charged in a large-scale marijuana distribution ring allegedly supplied some players on the 2010-2011 University of Kansas basketball team, a federal prosecutor says.  Read more after the jump.
An assistant U.S. attorney made that assertion in a June 18 hearing to determine if Samuel Villeareal III should be detained pending trial.
Villeareal, 32, was one of 25 defendants charged June 11 in U.S. District Court with conspiring over a four-year period to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of “high-grade†marijuana in Johnson and Douglas counties.
In outlining Villeareal’s alleged role in the drug conspiracy, Assistant U.S. Attorney Terra Morehead told a federal magistrate that authorities seized $11,000 and an iPhone when they searched Villeareal’s house in May 2011.
She described him as a supplier of marijuana to a number of individuals, “including a number of Kansas University basketball players from the 2010-2011 season.â€
“We know that because of the text messages we obtained from the iPhone and also from surveillance that was done throughout this investigation of Mr. Villeareal,†Morehead said, according to a transcript of the hearing obtained by The Star.
