The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate's Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History (26 page)

"This is good shit, Johnny," a Kentucky colleague told him. "Where did it come from?"

"Belize," Boone said.

"No, come on. Tell us the truth."

If they weren't going to believe him, Boone thought, it wasn't worth lying to them, either. So, Boone stopped telling people where it came from, letting them suspect he got it in Florida or Mexico like everyone else.

As the Marion County marketplace relied more heavily on imported product to fill the demand during the homegrown off-season, high-level operators soon discovered that the trickiest element of the operation was transporting the contraband across state lines.

As Boone worked to find a better route from Belize into Kentucky, the federal government was learning about the wholesale pot connection to Marion County through an investigation that began on the road in 1980, developing a pretty good idea of how one Kentucky pot broker, known to the feds as Robert Joseph Shewmaker, operated on the highway. Even though he proceeded with characteristic caution, Shewmaker would be undone by a five-year investigation and thirty cooperating witnesses.

In the autumn of 1980, Shewmaker should have been overloaded with product, but increased efforts by the Kentucky State Police had put a dent in production. Of the forty-five acres of Marion County marijuana busted in one week, a good deal of it could have belonged to Shewmaker. Trying to find a solution to his supply problem, Shewmaker dropped in on Big Fred Sykes unannounced at Sykes's home in Roswell, Georgia. Big Fred said that a high-level Savannah smuggler had just asked him to help move a shipment, and Shewmaker was glad to assist, saying that he wanted a reason to buy a new van.

Bobby Joe first met Big Fred at Tug's house on Cujoe Key at some point in the 1970s. Tug's real name was Ralph Ramano, and he was a tugboat captain and pot smuggler. When Tug decided to retire in 1979, he passed his business to Big Fred, telling Shewmaker that Fred was his 50-50 partner and that whatever Big Fred wanted to buy from Marion County, Shewmaker should give to him on credit just as he would if he were selling it to Ramano. For every pound of Shewmaker's marijuana they sold, Big Fred and Ramano would each make a $25 commission, and what was left over was Shewmaker's profit.

By 1980, the government estimated that Shewmaker sold forty thousand to fifty thousand pounds of homegrown marijuana per year, a certain percentage of which headed southeast through Big Fred.*
But Fred wasn't just Shewmaker's client; the two also bartered marijuana between each other. Although Shewmaker grew marijuana by the ton, he could sell it only while supplies lasted-from October to February. After he sold out of his high-grade homegrown stockpile for the year, Shewmaker turned to Big Fred-like Johnny Boone turned to Belize-to replenish his supply and fulfill the demand that Marion County's reputation created, a demand that could gobble up twenty-five tons of potent sinsemilla in less than four months.

Likewise, Big Fred's overseas supply followed a cycle, dependent on shipments from the sea and air while evading federal interdiction efforts. When Big Fred didn't have supply enough to satisfy his customers, he often turned to Shewmaker, who could usually lend a hand. If Big Fred knew of a boat or a plane coming in, he might call Shewmaker to help move part of the load. Their business relationship was not static-one buyer and one seller-instead, it was dynamic and depended on where the marijuana was, who had it and what the prices were.

On November 26, 1980, Big Fred drove Shewmaker around Atlanta, shopping for a van. Shewmaker settled on a white 1979 Chevy G-10 for $4,597.50 cash, license plate number WL 4793. On the bill of sale, Shewmaker listed his business as Barr Cabinet Shop in Savannah and signed it at the bottom, "Bob Shewmaker."

Then, in the second week of December 1980, the Savannah smuggler called Big Fred and told him that the ship had come in and that they needed four or five vehicles. Big Fred called Bobby Joe Shewmaker, who rounded up two more drivers, and they all headed for St. Augustine, Florida. Their prearranged destination: the Best Western on Interstate 95 at the Highway 16 exit, room 141.

Bobby Joe Shewmaker and his team showed up at 9:30 a.m., Shewmaker driving an Oldsmobile, Ron Barr (Shewmaker's fat friend who had moved from Annapolis, Maryland, to Raywick) driving the new white Chevy van, and a Shewmaker associate known as Guardrail driving a black pickup with a false-bottomed external gas tank mounted in the truck bed (good for stashing several hundred pounds). He was known as Guardrail because he liked to use them to keep himself on the road when he was drinking.

Once they assembled, their Florida contact took Shewmaker and Big Fred to the stash house out of town on a pig farm, where the bales of Colombian marijuana were stashed in a semi-truck trailer. They stayed there about a half-hour and then went back to the motel.

When Big Fred and Shewmaker returned from the hog farm to check out at 10:35 a.m., the woman behind the desk slipped them a note that said, "Police investigating."They went back to the rooms and told the others it was time to go. They all headed out in a mismatched caravan to the stash house on the hog farm. Shewmaker in his Oldsmobile and Big Fred in his Corvette drove in first while their crews waited at a nearby store, driving into the hog farm one at a time: a Cadillac and green van from Big Fred's crew, then Barr in the new white van and Guardrail in the black pickup.

They loaded the Cadillac with 350 pounds, the green van with one thousand pounds, the white Chevy van with twelve hundred pounds, and the false bottom of the gas tank in Guardrail's black pickup with another five hundred pounds. After they were all loaded up, the convoy took off with Shewmaker and Big Fred riding clean as escorts. The next stop-a motel just a mile before the weigh station at the Georgia state line on Interstate 95. They planned for the loaded vehicles to wait at the motel while Big Fred and Shewmaker cruised past to see if the weigh station was open.

Once they saw that the coast was clear, they returned to the motel, but when they pulled into the parking lot, they realized that Ron Barr, driving the white van loaded with twelve hundred pounds, hadn't stopped. Shewmaker tried to reach Barr on the C.B. radios they carried, but Barr didn't answer. To find him, Big Fred drove his silver Corvette up Interstate 95, and Shewmaker drove southbound in his Oldsmobile, but they couldn't find the white van anywhere.

After they regrouped, Big Fred and his crew drove north to Savannah before returning to Atlanta. When he arrived at his son's house, Big Fred sent Little Fred with eight hundred pounds to the big man in Savannah who had called Big Fred into the deal in the first place. Then Big Fred called Bobby Joe in Kentucky to ask about Barr.

"Is everything all right up there?" Big Fred asked.

"Yeah," Shewmaker said. "Everything arrived safe and sound."

Safe and sound, but it had all been for nothing. This batch of Colombian Gold, once a potent variety, was now brown, seedy and brittle. Totally worthless. Shewmaker tried to sell some of the load to Johnny Boone, but Boone told Shewmaker it wasn't worth buying.

Marion County had high standards; its residents and customers had been smoking good pot for a decade. This Colombian stuff that Shewmaker brought back from Florida on Christmas was garbage. No one would touch it. A week after Shewmaker brought back this bad load of Colombian, the state police kicked in the door to the Bicketts'farmhouse and confiscated 150 pounds of good Kentucky homegrown.

Two months later a man from Savannah told Big Fred Sykes he wanted the money from the marijuana he helped move. Sykes told him the problem: There wasn't any money on the deal because none of it sold. The Savannah man said he wanted the money or the marijuana back, so Big Fred drove his green van to Kentucky to load up what Shewmaker couldn't sell to return it to Savannah. After paying his drivers $15,000, Shewmaker lost money on the deal.

The next autumn, 1981, Big Fred Sykes came to Marion County to oversee the loading of a big shipment of Shewmaker's pot that he would be taking south. As Shewmaker's workers loaded up the truck, Big Fred saw Shewmaker's tally sheet in the hands of Bobby Joe's brother. The sheet showed that Tug Ramano, the man who had put them together, had lied to Big Fred about Tug's share of the sales between Shewmaker and himself. Tug said when they cut the deal that he would get a $25-per-pound commission, just like Fred, but the tally sheet showed Tug taking $50 per pound-double the payment under the table.

Six months before, Big Fred had borrowed $50,000 from Tug to buy a house in Roswell, Georgia. The loan was just now coming due as Big Fred discovered that Tug was cheating him. He asked Shewmaker about it, and Shewmaker came clean, telling Big Fred that he recently paid Tug $47,000, which Big Fred used to estimate that Tug owed him more than double that, $100,000.

Some time later, Tug demanded repayment from Big Fred on his home loan, and Big Fred turned the tables on him, taping the phone call with a recorder from Radio Shack.

"I just learned that you and Bobby Joe been screwing me," Big Fred told Ramano, according to transcripts of a phone conversation later read in open court. "I've been out here selling your marijuana, and you've been making a lot more money than you ever told me. So, I don't owe you money. You owe me money. If you pay me the hundred grand you owe me, I'll pay you the fifty I borrowed."

In response, Tug began sending Big Fred threatening letters. So, to protect himself, Big Fred recorded a telephone conversation with Shewmaker as an insurance policy against Tug. In the call, Big Fred asked Shewmaker when he would travel from Kentucky to Florida.

"Maybe by the end of the week," Shewmaker said. "I might come down before then, though."

"All right," Big Fred replied.

"I have had this cold, or I'd have come down the last part of last week."

"Yeah, I had one, too." Big Fred said. "Have you heard from the boys any?"

"Yeah."

"Jimmy and them," referring to associates from Savannah.

"Yeah, I took care of them, I reckon."

"Are they doing anything?" Big Fred asked.

"Probably they ain't yet."

Later in the conversation, Big Fred and Shewmaker discussed Big Fred's problem with Tug.

"Well, I was wondering if you have any suggestions," Big Fred said. "I don't. I don't guess he's buying that story," referring to Shewmaker's brother.

"What? ..."Shewmaker asked.

"Well, you know, he's-I guess he's not wanting to buy that, you know. But I got that information from [your brother], but I don't-but I don't know what to tell them unless I just tell them that I got it from you and you can keep on denying it, I guess. Have you got any thoughts [how] I can bring it to a head without creating a big problem?"

Shewmaker didn't.

"So, all I did," Big Fred said later in the call. "I told him it come from the horse's mouth, you know. I didn't mention any names, but that ain't satisfying him, evidently. Is it?"

"Evidently," Shewmaker replied. "I don't know-too stubborn."

Then Big Fred began to question Tug's outlaw ethics.

"Well, I guess he's just an honorable-he's just honorable if he has to be honorable. All that honorable talk doesn't seem to mean much, but as far as I'm concerned, he owes me money. I could be sending him the same letters. I wonder how that'd work."

"I believe that's the thing to do," Shewmaker said. "You know what I mean?"

Toward the end of the call, Shewmaker decided that maybe it would be best if he went down and talked to Tug and Big Fred face-to-face.

"I might come down Tuesday or Wednesday-it's according-and get a load. I was wanting to wait for my truck to come in so I could put a few miles on it, but I don't know. It might not be in. Supposed to be here on the twenty-second."

And with that, everything seemed to go on as it always did, except the wheels of the federal government turn slowly sometimes, and its agents were methodically gathering evidence against Shewmaker on this one deal that went bad in too many ways to count.