An Arvada man who sent boxes of illegal marijuana edibles through the U.S. Postal Service to buyers in New York City, Maryland and Texas was sentenced Wednesday to a year and one day in federal prison.
Stephen Paul Anderson, a.k.a. “the healthnut,” was also sentenced to serve three years of community supervised release after his prison term.
“Oh boy, you thought this was going to be an easy way to make money, and it is going to cost you your freedom,” U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello said at Anderson’s sentencing Wednesday morning.
During the sentencing, Arguello expressed great displeasure with Colorado’s legalization of marijuana, which she said saps the motivation of many young people and “destroys them.”
“I think drugs, even marijuana, is destroying the fabric of society,” she said.
Dressed in gray slacks, a blue shirt and a tie, Anderson, 27, sobbed while apologizing to the judge for his actions.
Anderson, who moved from Texas to Colorado, previously entered a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in which they dropped three charges against him in exchange for his guilty plea to manufacturing marijuana edibles and using the U.S. Postal Service to distribute the drugs.
Federal postal inspectors used drug-sniffing dogs trained to detect tetrahydrocannabinol, THC — the main psychoactive compound in marijuana — to search mail packages at the Denver mail processing center at 7550 E. 53rd Place, on Nov. 13, 2015, according to federal court records.
Anderson used a propane tank in his basement to make highly concentrated oil over an open flame, a process that has triggered explosions and fires across the Denver metro area.
