Watertown Councilman And Ex-Wife Sentenced For Marijuana Distribution And Money Laundering

BOSTON – A former Watertown Town Councilman and his ex-wife were sentenced yesterday for their roles in marijuana-trafficking and money-laundering conspiracies involving hundreds of kilograms of marijuana and millions of dollars of drug proceeds.

Thomas Gus Bailey, 52, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel to 84 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Barbara Waldman, 49, was sentenced by Judge Zobel to six months in prison and three years of supervised release. In November 2013, Bailey pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana, distribution of marijuana, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Waldman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering.

In October 2011, a federal investigation was initiated into the history and scope of Bailey’s criminal operation when law enforcement found and seized more than 1,000 marijuana plants in the former councilman’s warehouse in Waltham. The investigation revealed that from at least 2001 through October 2011, Bailey ran a marijuana cultivation and distribution business which overlapped with the time he served on Watertown’s Town Council (January 2002 to December 2005). Over this 10-year period, Bailey gradually expanded his lucrative marijuana business by moving his operation to successively larger indoor grow locations and hiring more workers to trim his marijuana plants and prepare the marijuana for sale. Further, beginning in at least 2006, he orchestrated a money laundering scheme where he and his co-conspirators, including his ex-wife, as well as his former mistress, laundered more than $1 million in drug proceeds. At Bailey’s direction, his co-conspirators made hundreds of separate cash deposits in amounts of $5,000 or less into their bank accounts, and then provided checks to Bailey in furtherance of his marijuana operation. Waldman was responsible for laundering at least $900,000 as part of this scheme. All of Bailey and Waldman’s co-defendants have also been convicted and sentenced in this case.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; John J. Arvanitis, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Boston Field Division; William P. Offord, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston; and Chief Keith MacPherson of the Waltham Police Department, made the announcement. The Suburban Middlesex County Drug Task Force also provided assistance to the investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Young Paik of Ortiz’s Drug Task Force Unit.