![]() ![]() Boone went to prison for more than a decade and many others got six-month sentences. Eventually, 70 Kentuckians, including Berry, were accused of growing 182 tons of marijuana. The operation included a string of 29 farms in Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas and Wisconsin.īoone was tagged by prosecutors as the group’s leader. Prosecutors said they found 48 tons of marijuana along with more than a dozen automatic and semiautomatic weapons and sophisticated alarms. “Let the man get on with his life.”īut Wisconsin State Trooper Arden Asp, who arrested Berry after he fled the farm, said a pardon doesn’t make any sense. The guy made a choice to commit a crime,” said 63-year-old Phillip Wagner, who spent 16 years with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension before retiring in 2003. But, the lead investigator in the “Cornbread Mafia” case said “I’m good with it” after Berry was pardoned. No reason was given for granting the pardon.īerry, 60 and declined to be interviewed about his pursuit and receipt of the pardon. 21, restoring his rights to vote and carry a firearm. President Barack Obama pardoned Berry on Nov. The Loretto, Ky., man pleaded guilty in 1988 to conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana and serve three years in federal prison for playing a bit part in what federal prosecutors described as one of the largest domestic marijuana syndicates in the country.īerry, a one-time associate of 68-year-old Johnny Boone, a fugitive known as the “Godfather of Grass” and the “King of Pot,” is now free of the legal taint carried by a criminal conviction. Now after a conviction and prison time, his slate has been wiped clean by a presidential pardon this month. ![]() went out the back with six others and nearly escaped-captured the next day in Wisconsin. LOUISVILLE, Ky.-As state and federal investigators came through the front door of a barn in Minnesota during a bust of the “Cornbread Mafia” in October 1987, Les Berry Jr. ![]()
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