Jimmy Mahrenholz
LAWRENCE CO.—While details are still coming in (and we’ll have them for the print version) Disclosure has learned that on Monday, a Lawrence County meth maker is now free after entering into a negotiated plea.
James T. (Jimmy) Mahrenholz, 46, of rural Lawrence County, was charged with multiple felony counts of meth making when deputies busted him at his farm on the east side of the county.
Authorities have told Disclosure that Mahrenholz, a member of a powerful farm family in Lawrence County, has been producing meth at the farm location since the mid-90s when the drug was introduced to the area. See last month’s (January-February) edition for the details on this.
On Monday, at a regularly-scheduled status hearing for Mahrenholz, his Vincennes attorney was present with bond money ($50,000 certified check), this after Mahrenholz had been at a very exclusive rehab in Springfield. It appears that rather than letting Mahrenholz bond out and go about his “business” for the next couple of years and dragging through continuances until an expensive jury trial, prosecutor Chris Quick struck a deal: be convicted of one of the meth making charges, and be part of Judge Robert Hopkins’ “drug court,” which has extreme restrictions on the movement of the convicted person, and oftentimes results in imprisonment within a matter of weeks simply because of the strictness of the program.
Mahrenholz will be tested for drugs up to two or three times a week as well as a host of other restrictions, any of which can send him to DOC. And if he’s as deep into it as the authorities have been saying, there’s no way a four-week rehab is going to have helped.
It’s our understanding that his fines and fees totaled about $10,000, which his family can afford to pay…something others might not have been able to. If at this point anyone is thinking “money can buy justice,” this could be the juncture…but money is also EXPENDED on these meth-heads, and if the county taxpayers want to take a loss of $90,000, they can gripe…but this is the result of the “drug court” program, and their gripe needs to extend to Hopkins. In this scenario, the taxpayer comes out ahead—no expensive jury trial, resulting in probation anyway since Mahrenholz is a first-time offender (because that’s EXACTLY what he’d have gotten), and this way, Mahrenholz is given the chance to screw up again.
More details will be coming in the next print version of Disclosure, on stands March 12-13; get your renews in, and be sure to get an e-Edition if you don’t already have one, so you can read it all.