GREENVILLE —
A California man has been indicted for allegedly dumping bags full of marijuana on locations across Hunt County two years ago.
Darin William Fayne was alleged to have flown a plane filled with marijuana across North Texas before the aircraft ran out of gas near Caddo Mills.
The Hunt County grand jury Friday returned an indictment against Fayne with one count of possession of marijuana in an amount of between 50 and 2,000 pounds. The status of a second charge, alleging Fayne attacked federal officers as part of the same incident, was unclear Friday.
Fayne, 46, of Coarsegold, California, is free on bond after being arrested two years ago and charged with one count each of possession of marijuana and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against a public servant.
Six duffel bags believed connected to a plane abandoned early the morning of July 19, 2010 at the Caddo Mills Municipal Airport have been recovered. The street value of the more than 200 pounds of hydroponic marijuana has been estimated at up to $1.5 million.
The possession charge is a second degree felony, punishable upon conviction by a maximum sentence of from two to 20 years in prison and an optional fine of up to $10,000.
The assault charge involves an incident at Majors Field Municipal Airport in Greenville the same morning. Fayne’s aircraft had been followed by federal agents across the southwestern United States.
According to statements by the Air Marines, their aircraft landed and was stationary on the runway at Majors. An armed, uniformed federal agent deboarded and attempted to approach the Cherokee 140 aircraft believed piloted by Fayne.
Fayne’s aircraft was reported to have accelerated directly at the agent and the Air Marine plane, with the wing of the suspect plane moving directly underneath the Air Marine plane.
At the time of the incident, Carl Rusnok with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Dallas said the plane had been under surveillance for some time before it came to Hunt County.
“We were alerted to a plane suspected of smuggling drugs,” Rusnok said.
ICE partnered with Air Marine operations through the Department of Customs and Border Protection to begin tracking the plane.
“The plane was identified as coming from Arizona, so it was followed for a while,” Rusnok said. “The ICE agents involved had reason to be suspicious of the plane and of the people on the plane.”
Rusnok did not comment on the reasons why the agency became suspicious of the aircraft, as it was part of a continuing investigation.
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