Gay porn star sentenced to five years in prison after selling $3.5 million worth of marijuana
Gay porn star Chris Bines has been sentenced to 59 months in prison, just one month short of five-years, after selling $3.5 million worth of marijuana across Florida.
The 31-year-old was also charged with money laundering.
Bines – whose real name is Steven Michael Sholly – is said to be one of a few individuals who grouped together to circulate around 100kg of the substance across the Sunshine State.
The men involved allegedly conjured up the conspiracy plan in January 2014 and had only ceased distributing the drug in June 2017.
Bines – along with Charles Zachariah Sindylek, David DelGiacco, Brandon Craig Remeyer, Paul Marcelonis – was arrested in September 2017 and pleaded guilty a month later.
Pensacola-based Sindylek received the long sentence, 90 months while Remeyer, of Trabuco Canyon, California, is set to be jailed for 72.
DelGiacco, of Lake Forest, California, will spend 30 days in custody of the Bureau of Prisons and Marcelonis, also of Pensacola, will be imprisoned for 18 months.
Bines was also charged with money-laundering along with several other men (CC0 Public Domain)
Both the prosecution – led by Assistant United States lawyer Alicia H Forbes – and court reportedly discovered that Sholly had been ferrying weed-filled packages from the Golden State to the Sunshine State along with another man named William Ezra Brownell.
The money from the operation was then said to be concealed through several back accounts and was mailed to each of the men’s addresses at a later date.
Related: Gay people are eight times more likely to be victims of revenge porn
According to GSN, Bines was ordered to self-surrender by May 21 so that he could start his prison stint as soon as possible. After seeing through his near-five year sentence, Bines will reportedly be put on supervised release for a following three years.
This particular case has come to a head thanks to an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service–Criminal Investigation and the Pensacola Police Department.
The Mobile Police Department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office and the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office were also involved in the proceedings, as were the Gulf Breeze Police Department, and the Gulf Coast High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program.
(Pexels)
‘This prosecution is part of an extensive investigation by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF),’ confirm Towleroad. ‘OCDETF is a joint federal, state, and local cooperative approach to combat drug trafficking in the area.’
Across his career, Bines has worked for production companies such as Randy Blue, Falcon Studios and Men.com. He has starred in adult films such as Turn It Up, Want It Now, Easy Inn, Deep Examination and Naughty Pines.
