Roughly five months after taking a plea deal to remain free, the main suspect in the 2010 Lenoir County pot bus case has decided to take prison instead.
Lensey Ray Dail, 55, intends to appear in Lenoir County Superior Court today and voluntarily give up the 36 months on probation to which he was sentenced in April. In exchange for avoiding serving time, Dail also had to pay $9,124.50, $8,000 of which is restitution.
He hasn’t made any payment on the fines.
“The reason, mainly, I took the probation was because they had my wife charged,” Dail said Tuesday. “The only way I could take the plea bargain with the probation was for her charges to be dismissed. I wasn’t going to plea bargain no way — I was going to go to trial on this case.”
His wife, Desiz, had been charged with two counts of trafficking marijuana and two counts of maintaining a place for controlled substances.
As it stood in April, Dail pled to possession of a Schedule VI controlled substance and maintaining a place for controlled substances. The two charges were consolidated for judgment and assessed a possible prison sentence of 6-8 months. His plea on the third charge, delivering and selling a Schedule VI controlled substance, had a possible 10-12 months prison sentence attached.
Those sentences were suspended for the fines and 36 months’ probation.
At the time he was arrested in January 2010, law enforcement announced they seized 68 adult marijuana plants from inside a converted school bus he’d buried underground.
“From the back to the front, there was minimal walking space in the bus,” Lenoir County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Eddie Eubanks said at the time. “It was tight. He used every space he had available.”
Dail disputes some of the statements made by law enforcement in regard to the age, size, weight and number of plants seized. That, and other aspects of the story he said didn’t come out in court, are the reason he’s writing a second book on the incident. The first was released in 2011.
“I’d rather just go do the time, and that way I can get it over with and be done with it — get it behind me,” Dail said. “I want to get it behind me before I release my next book, also.”
Then-Sheriff Billy Smith said it was one of the largest marijuana busts he’d ever seen, and other officers involved in the investigation said “you would have to see it to believe it.”
Dail said most of the book will be drawn from official statements made by law enforcement and witnesses.
“There ain’t a bunch of animosity and stuff, it’s just that I don’t like the way my case was handled,” Dail said.
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 and Wes.Wolfe@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at @WolfeReports.
In choosing to revoke his own probation, Lensey Ray Dail will be subject to the following:
Felony possession of a Schedule VI controlled substance (Initial)
Felony maintaining a place for controlled substances (Consolidated for judgment)
6-8 months imprisonment
Felony delivering and selling a Schedule VI controlled substance (Concurrent to first two charges)
10-12 months imprisonment
The terms are to run concurrently