Tried Twice for One Load

A man ran a marijuana importing and distribution operation across several states for about five years. In one federal district he pleaded guilty to off-loading about 12,000 pounds of marijuana at a remote landing and was sentenced to five years. Two months later prosecutors in another district charged him with running a continuing criminal enterprise, using that same importation as one of the required string of drug offences. That charge required proof that he organised or managed five or more people in a continuing series of violations and made substantial income from it. The defence argued the second prosecution was double jeopardy, because his earlier conviction was a lesser part of the same enterprise offence.