mount vernon man sentenced on gun and drug charges
Contact: Peter Deegan
A man who tried to swallow a baggie of marijuana while being arrested, and who was then found to possess two guns, was sentenced on April 21, 2011, to 140 days in jail and 3 years of supervised release.
Marc Snively, age 43, from Mount Vernon, Iowa, received the prison term after a December 3, 2010, guilty plea to one charge of being an illegal drug user in possession of firearms and one charge of possession of marijuana.
According to information filed with the court, Mount Vernon law enforcement officers went to Snively’s home on January 27, 2010, to arrest him for failure to maintain control and for leaving the scene of an accident. Snively pulled a small bag of marijuana from his pocket and put it in his mouth. He refused to spit it out, and an officer had to use a Taser to get Snively to stop resisting arrest.
Officers obtained a search warrant after seeing marijuana roaches and a beer can with marijuana on it in Snively’s kitchen. During the search, officers found marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and two firearms - a 12 gauge shotgun and a .22 pistol.
Snively was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade. Snively was sentenced to 140 days’ imprisonment and fined $1,000. A special assessment of $125 was imposed. He must also serve a 3-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Daniel C. Tvedt as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a cooperative local, state, and federal program aimed at the enhanced prosecution of gun crimes. The case was investigated by the Mount Vernon Police Department.
Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 10-80.
