A man in the supply chain of synthetic marijuana smoked by an Aurora teen who died after crashing his car after using the substance must report to federal prison by Jan. 15.
When Suliman Tanus pleaded guilty to distribution of a controlled substance analogue, two other counts from his 2016 indictment were dismissed. His plea states he knowingly and intentionally distributed a substance containing synthetic marijuana knowing it was intended for human consumption in both Aurora and North Carolina.
Cigar Box owner Ruby Mohsin and employee Mohammad Khan both pleaded guilty in February agreements to conspiracy to distribute the drug, which Aurora college student Max Dobner, 19, bought at the store inside the Fox Valley Mall in 2011 and smoked with a friend before he crashed his car, ultimately driving into a North Aurora house. Mohsin and Khan each face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Judge Charles Norgle Sr. has been handling their cases.
Mohsin’s sentencing began in November and is scheduled to resume Jan. 4. Khan had been scheduled for sentencing Tuesday, but instead the parties held a status hearing and continued his sentencing until January for reasons related to the defense counsel’s health.
U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer this month sentenced Tanus to 30 months in prison followed by two years of supervised release, to be served concurrently with his sentence in another case.
Tanus is to surrender for service of his sentence at whichever institution he’s assigned before 2 p.m. Jan. 15. The court recommended a prison as close as possible to Nevada. Tanus was also fined $1,000 and charged an assessment cost of $100.
Conditions of his supervised release include seeking, and working conscientiously at, lawful employment or pursing a course of study or vocational training, according to court filings. If Tanus is unemployed for 60 days in a row at any point during the first two years after his release from prison, the court may require him to perform at least 20 hours of community service per week, not to exceed 100 total hours, until he gets a legal job.
Tanus bought the synthetics wholesale from Kevin Seydel, of Bettendorf, Iowa, who made and sold them to customers in other states, including Louisiana, North Carolina and Illinois, according to court documents.
Seydel mixed synthetic marijuana with acetone and put the mixture on marshmallow leaf, then added flavoring and dried it, according to court documents. He bought some of the chemicals he used from China, wire transferring money from an Iowa bank.
In May 2011, after Seydel was arrested in Iowa, he gave Tanus his formula and customer list in exchange for a share of the proceeds from future sales, according to court records, which state Mohsin was among those customers.
Seydel pleaded guilty in December to charges including conspiracy to distribute the synthetics and conspiracy to transmit and transfer money from the U.S. to another country with the intent to promote the importation, possession and distribution of controlled substance analogues. Seydel was sentenced in June to four years in prison followed by two years of supervised release and fined $25,000.
Tanus was initially indicted in 2015 in North Carolina for agreeing to supply synthetic marijuana on credit to the operator of a food mart in Greensboro between June 2011 and November 2013. That case was later transferred to the Northern District of Illinois, where he was indicted in the Aurora case.
The operator of the One Stop Friendly Food Mart sold synthetics Tanus provided to store customers and others, paying Tanus from his proceeds. During that time, Tanus made the drugs in North Carolina and Nevada using the formula Seydel gave him, according to his sentencing memo.
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Federal agents contacted Tanus in January 2014, at which point he stopped criminal activity and cooperated with the investigation, according to the memo. He said he distributed about 10 kilograms of a specific type of synthetic marijuana to the food mart.
In their pleas, Mohsin and Khan said they sold products labeled as potpourri and not for human consumption, knowing customers were buying them to get a marijuana-like high.
Tanus sold at least 1,100 packages of synthetic marijuana to the Cigar Box between May 20 and June 16, 2011, in three deals described in his sentencing memo. Two of the sales took place before Dobner’s death, and one took place after, according to the memo.
On the day Dobner crashed his car — June 14, 2011 — Mohsin sold three single-gram packages of synthetics to Dobner and a friend for $20. The next month, Khan sold two small packages of Head Trip and Kush Potpourri at the Cigar Box for $30 to an undercover law enforcement officer, according to his plea.