Bobby Turner
LAWRENCE CO. – A lag time in filing charges following what appears to have been a significant drug arrest has many in Lawrence County, and particularly in Lawrenceville, scratching their heads.
The two men in question, Tim Roth and Robert (“Bobby”) Turner, were arrested on April 6.
However, on Friday, April 14, no charges were available in any physical files in Lawrence County Circuit Court. Only NCIC arrest sheets were available; and while these are official documents that accompany an arrest giving vital statistics and showing that the arrested individual has been fingerprinted upon booking process, they are not charging documents.
And while they generally show a charge at the bottom – as filled out by the circuit clerk – neither document had that feature when they were viewed a full week and a day after the duo’s arrest.
This doesn’t mean that the two weren’t charged when they were jailed. Somewhere along the line, formal charges had to have been filed, within 48 hours of arrest. Generally speaking, a Friday arrest can get a person held for twice that without formal charges, as the weekend can get in the way. But even that wasn’t the case with the two…they were, according to the arrest sheets and published reports, arrested on a Thursday.
Therefore, it remains unclear exactly how long Roth and Turner sat in jail before they were formally charged.
According to available information, the formal charges were actually filed – or at least made public – on April 18, a full 12 days after their detention.
Roth, 55, of Lawrenceville, has been charged formally with Meth Delivery less than 5 grams, a Class 2 felony.
The act is said to have occurred on April 6.
Roth a petty crim in Lawrence, with only a couple of misdemeanors on his record (one dating back 15 years, the other dating back to 2015) pertaining to pot possession.
Turner, on the other hand, is a repeat offender in Lawrence whose criminal antics have somehow managed to stay off Disclosure’s radar up to this point.
The 47-year-old Turner’s Lawrence County history starts out similar to his buddy Roth’s with a pot misdemeanor conviction 17 years ago.
However, Turner steadily devolved into more serious drug activity, and has for years been known as a major dope player in the Lawrence area.
Examples of his convictions include:
Possession of a Controlled Substance and an attendant Obstruction/Destroying Evidence conviction, both felonies, both of which were charged in 2001 and got him sent to IDOC for a short stint in 2002 upon conviction;
A Class 2 felony Meth conviction in 2004 which got him 4 years in IDOC;
Meth Delivery in 2006, which Class 2 felony got him another IDOC stint of four years in 2006;
A 2008 Class 3 felony Possession of Meth conviction that got him 42 months in IDOC;
A large number of meth delivery, possession, and precursor charges in 2010, only one of which – the Class 3 Possession of Meth charge – former prosecutor Lisa Wade saw fit to get him convicted on despite his history, which got him 6 years in IDOC;
And a 2014 IDOC sentence for Possession of Meth less than 5 grams, for which he should still be in prison, but which truth-in-sentencing guidelines got him out in 2016.
Turner’s current charge, as filed by new Lawrence County State’s Attorney Michael Strange, is the most serious of all he’s faced thus far: A Class X felony Meth Delivery more than 400 but less than 900 grams charge.
The Southern Illinois Drug Task Force was the investigating agency behind the Roth/Turner arrests, which fact took not a few people by surprise, as it’s been widely said for years that the SIDTF rarely ventures into Lawrence County.
They may have been drawn there, however, by the ongoing presence of what appears to be a county-wide drug highway developing among counties bordering the Wabash River.
In recent years, the “drug highway” has seen expanding efforts by its mules and plugs (the mules being the precursor or finished product runners; the plugs being the local, static people who provide the selection of dope to those interested in delivering), with Wabash and White counties seeming to have been the initial focal point.
Saline to the south of White and Lawrence to the north of Wabash have come to be on the radar in more recent months.
Additionally, there was a connection made with the “Highway 50” crew of dopers, many of which went federal between 2015-16, and included Nathan Headley, Josh Millman and Brad Beehn.
The Highway 50 dopers ran from Clay County to the west, through Richland (and Edwards to the south), Lawrence, then on into Indiana’s Knox County….then to points north.
Lawrence police officials have been working that angle of it for about the past year, with one official even traveling to Indianapolis, where there was supposedly a connection to some local Lawrenceville crime involving high-end ice, a very pure form of meth that in some instances has killed the users.
Whether Roth and Turner are alleged to have been part of either of those dope highways, running north/south or east/west, remains unsaid at this time.
Depending upon the circumstances of it, it also remains unknown as to whether Roth and/or Turner will get it into their heads that their Constitutional rights as regards detention without charges within 48 hours will be something they’ll seek to call up, now that they actually are formally charged.
Both Roth and Turner have been set for preliminary hearings in their cases on April 28; it’s unknown whether they’ve managed to hire private counsel or will be relying on the services of the county for a public defender.
Both remained jailed as of press time, April 23.
Tim Roth