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The Indiana Daily Student

Baptist minister pleads guilty to drug charges

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INDIANAPOLIS — A Baptist minister pleaded guilty Tuesday to distributing dozens of tons of synthetic marijuana while leading a multi-million-dollar drug ring.

Robert Jaynes Jr. is charged with distributing and possessing “spice,” or synthetic marijuana, and introducing the drug, mislabeled, into interstate commerce.

The former pastor of Irvington Bible Baptist Church faced up to 25 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines. The guidelines of the plea deal, though, state he’ll only serve a maximum of 12 and a half years in prison.

The deal also includes an agreement for Jaynes to forfeit up to $41,758 and more than 800 pounds of silver-colored coins, pieces 
and bars.

According to the 2014 federal indictment, filed in Missouri, Jaynes and at least 12 other people were involved in the drug operation, which packaged and moved the drugs. The ring allegedly involved married Hendricks County sheriff’s 
deputies, an Indianapolis Public Schools teacher and a man who worked as a clown.

Kirk Parsons, Jaynes’s brother-in-law and another defendant in the case, also entered a guilty plea Tuesday, but the agreement was placed under seal.

Jaynes’s involvement accounted for at least 90,000 kilograms — or more than 99 tons — of the drug, according to the plea agreement. The agreement also noted “no further attempt was made to quantify the amount of seized material,” because it well exceeded the threshold for the highest drug quantity guidelines.

Under the names Tight Thirty Entertainment, Inc. and West Strong Wholesale, Inc., Jaynes and Parsons sold, purchased and distributed the drug, according to the plea agreement. They also attempted to circumvent federal laws by labeling the drugs “not for human consumption” despite knowing people were ingesting the drugs.

Through West Strong Wholesale, Jaynes and Parsons sold about $2.6 million of drugs with names like Darkness and Pirates Booty.

Parsons also attended the church, which Jaynes founded in 1998, as did at least one witness who also worked at Jaynes’s Tight Thirty Entertainment warehouse.

The warehouse is located on Brookville Road in Irvington, the same street the church is on.

The church was quiet Wednesday afternoon. Associate pastor Paul Mahler, sitting in a red Ford crossover in the gravel parking lot, said he had no comment on Jaynes’s plea agreement.

Curtains covered the building’s windows, and the planter on its front edge sat empty and crumbling.

A sign on the wall of yellowing paneling cited Psalm 119:105: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

The church’s website no longer lists Jaynes as its pastor — under its “Ministry Staff” tab, only Mahler is listed. But a video posted to the church’s YouTube page Nov. 29 shows Jaynes playing guitar and singing on a song called “We’re Not Home Yet.”

The video has 142 views, nine likes and just one comment, from an account under the name Sherry 
Parsons.

“Looking for His return!” it reads.

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