Talk:Robert Meinster

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Robert Meinster is a biography of Robert Jay Meinster, a partner in the Black Tuna Gang: his part in the ring in Philadelphia and Miami, the North Carolina shipment, his two trials, his sentence and his release. The ring itself is covered on Black Tuna Gang. The court captions give his full name, Robert Jay Meinster; that form redirects here.

Sourcing

His part in the ring, his convictions and his sentence come from the federal appeals opinions, United States v. Phillips (Fifth Circuit, 1981) and United States v. Meinster (Fourth Circuit, 1980), whose accounts of the facts rest on the evidence at trial. His release date is the Federal Bureau of Prisons' record. Time (1979), Brantley Hargrove's article in Miami New Times (2008) and Eduardo Sáenz Rovner (2011) are cited for his origins, the auction and the indictment. Discuss attribution and any claim that has lost its source here.

Discussion

Length of the sentence

The Fifth Circuit gives his aggregate sentence as 53 years, of which 31 were for the continuing-criminal-enterprise count. Miami New Times (2008) gives 54 years and Sáenz Rovner (2011) 59.

How the ring began

The Fifth Circuit has a Florida dealer, in an arrangement made with Platshorn, sending marijuana to Meinster in Philadelphia from August 1974. Sáenz Rovner has Meinster and Platshorn, both living in Philadelphia, buying a long ton of Colombian marijuana from a wholesaler in Wisconsin. Platshorn told Miami New Times (2008) that he passed a seller's contact on to Meinster after meeting the seller at the Wisconsin State Fair.

The North Carolina shipment

The Fourth Circuit places Meinster at the hotel in Wilmington where the radio equipment was set up, and at the final arrangements on 7 December 1977. Platshorn told Miami New Times (2008) that neither he nor Meinster had been anywhere near that deal.

His own account

Miami New Times (2008) reports that Meinster declined to be interviewed. The accounts from inside the ring in that article are Platshorn's.