Retired California man gives marijuana cookies to hotel staff www.privateofficer.com
Reno NV Aug 18 2011 A retired California heating and air conditioning business owner visiting Reno for Hot August Nights is facing legal trouble for giving a hotel and casino bartender and a guest cookies that were laced with marijuana, which caused them to be hospitalized.
Soon after police on Saturday knocked on 71-year-old Donald Mayden’s hotel door at the Grand Sierra Resort, they said he was trying to flush about 20 pot cookies down the toilet. When they got inside the room, officers said they saw him standing in front of the toilet while wearing his boxers, and then he suddenly sat on the toilet and pretended they were interrupting his use of the restroom, according to a police report.
Mayden, of Fortuna, Calif., was booked into the Washoe County Jail on Saturday morning on suspicion of destroying evidence and possession and sale of marijuana. He was released after posting $4,500 bail.
During a telephone interview Wednesday from his California home he said that he was bringing the cookies made with marijuana to Reno for a friend, who decided they didn’t want them. He said he shared the leftovers with the bartender and a another man who had been drinking with him at the bar.
“I don’t think the cookies made them sick because my roommate had a couple and he didn’t get sick,” Mayden said.
The retiree said he had thrown the cookies in the toilet prior to police knocking on his door, but that he intended on flushing them anyway. He said this was his first arrest.
“(The police) thought I was a drug dealer, and I can understand that,” he said. “But the police were real nice people considering what they thought they were dealing with. But I don’t think the charges are right.”
Grand Sierra Resort security after midnight on Saturday called police to report that a bartender and a guest had been poisoned after eating cookies laced with marijuana. The men had been hospitalized and tests showed they had the drug’s metabolites in their bodies, according to a report.
The victims were able to give authorities the suspect’s name and phone number. Mayden was quickly identified and police went to his room to question him.
Officers said that he asked them to wait in the hall while he put clothes on. But police said they could hear him rustling a bag and throwing items down the toilet.
According to a police report, Mayden was talking very loudly to mask the noise he was making. He had also put the door’s latch on, which security had to remove for officers to get inside the room.
Mayden told police he knew the cookies were made with marijuana and that he was delivering them for a friend for people who were attending Hot August Nights. He told police, the report said, that he had been making these deliveries the past few years.
As for coming back to Reno in the future, Mayden said “Well, I do like the car show.”
He said he has a court hearing scheduled for next month
Source:rgj.com
