lies. Here is an article about me and some others were in the Indianapolis Star. I knew Doug Sloan, and he was the one who introduced me to K2. I think I met Parsons once and was not in business with him, and there are others that have been stated that were part of the business that I never met or heard of. I was never interviewed by any reporter from any station. Why? You would think they would want the facts.
Here is an article in the Indianapolis Star
In 2010, court records say, Upchurch began manufacturing “smokeless synthetic cannabis products” in Indiana. He sold more than 2,000 pounds of spice, and “profited millions of dollars,” according to sentencing documents.
Roger Upchurch awaits sentencing after agreeing to plead guilty to federal charges involving synthetic marijuana. Upchurch moved his manufacturing operation to Chandler, Arizona, in 2012. He moved it again the following year to Chatsworth, California, where the operation was producing more than 200 pounds of spice a day.
At a plea hearing in 2015, the judge asked Upchurch how he got involved with the spice ring. “A friend introduced me to a business opportunity that I took advantage of he said."
As part of his sentence, Upchurch forfeited more than $1.2 million along with a house, pontoon boat, and a 1966 Chevy, which the judge also asked him about. I graduated in 66, and that was the first car that I had, Upchurch explained. “So, I found one similar to it.”
As part of the plea deal negotiated in 2015, Upchurch agreed to help investigators in exchange for a lighter sentencing recommendation than the 20 years he was facing. Court records indicate his assistance included testifying before a federal grand jury in New York.
It is not clear from public records if Upchurch provided testimony against Sloan, Parsons, or Jaynes, who prosecutors allege sold more than 555,000 packages of spice between April 2011 and October 2013. Over a period of nine months in 2013, Jaynes grossed at least $2.6 million in sales, according to testimony. His total income from the drug sales, prosecutors said, was higher but could not be quantified easily.
Jaynes started in the business by packaging synthetic drugs made in Missouri by Doug and Greg Sloan, and eventually moved into distributing the finished product to retail outlets. When authorities shut down the Sloans' operation, Jaynes began making spice at a warehouse on Brookville Road and later at a Hancock County farm he purchased with $230,000 in cash.
Jaynes’ lawyer said he got involved with synthetic drugs after filing for bankruptcy and as his son was about to undergo open-heart surgery.
Contrary to what the article states I did not testify against anyone of the men listed above. One day Shelby and I had lunch together and said that she read this article and is was on TV about me and the others. She said that there was a guy that was a partner with Jarred Fogle and his child pornography deal. I told her that I do not know a lot of these people that the paper said that we are all part of a drug ring.
Here is another article.
IndyStar investigation: Indy's spice road
Probe uncovers tale of pastor, teacher and cops involved with synthetic drugs, bundles of cash and real trouble
Tim Evans, and Mark Alesia IndyStar
Robert Jaynes headed to his truck after a service Sunday, Oct. 25, 2015, at Irvington Bible Baptist Church. From all outward appearances, they were regular folks. Good Hoosiers. Salt-of-the-earth types in respected professions.
What they became, authorities say, was something much different — players in a real-life Indiana version of "Breaking Bad" involving millions of dollars in illegal drugs. But the drug was not meth. It was a potentially deadly synthetic substitute for marijuana.
The unlikely cast included a fire-and-brimstone preacher from a small Baptist church in Irvington. A husband and wife who were deputies for the Hendricks County Sheriff's Department. An Indianapolis Public Schools teacher. And a pair of business owners, one of whom put his company’s logo on an Indy 500 car and another who owned a natural dog food business, worked as a clown, and once ran for the state Senate as a Libertarian.
But behind their public personas, an Indianapolis Star investigation found, many appeared to be leading double lives. Court documents say those lives entangled them in an international criminal venture that made, packaged, and sold synthetic marijuana, commonly referred to as "spice" or "K2."
The local spice operation, according to court documents, was part of an international conspiracy stretching from the United States to China and back again to a farm near New Palestine and two warehouses along Brookville Road on the Southeast side of Indianapolis — a tangled web with branches that extended from New York to California.
But when The Star began pulling on the threads of that web, many led back to Indiana — and this most unlikely cast of suspects.
Irvington Bible Baptist Church in Indianapolis.
Robert Jaynes Jr., the fundamentalist preacher who founded Irvington Bible Baptist Church in 1998, is alleged to have been at the center of the Indiana operation that produced thousands of pounds of spice. The drug was sold — with a wink and nod, prosecutors say — as "incense" or "potpourri" and labeled "not for human consumption."
Jaynes, 45, employed church members in his drug enterprise. Records show members of the small congregation wrote personal checks to foreign suppliers of illegal substances used to make spice. Some laundered profits through personal bank accounts. Others produced and packaged the drugs at warehouses run by Jaynes and Kirk Parsons, 46, the pastor’s brother-in-law, close friend, and Irvington church leader. One even kept the books.
Through it all, Jaynes continued to preach the word of God, fervently imploring his parishioners to turn away from evil.
A YouTube video posted last year — just a week before Jaynes was indicted by a federal grand jury for his alleged role in the drug conspiracy — shows the pastor warning his flock about earthly temptations.
"When we come to Jesus Christ," Jaynes said, "we are no longer supposed to be partakers of the evil life. … The Bible tells us the devil is trying to deceive people and trick people and blind them and destroy them."
Luke Daugherty, who has known Jaynes since they were pastors more than a decade ago, called Jaynes a “spiritual predator.”
“He’s not some guy slinging spice on the side of the road,” Daugherty said. “He’s a guy who’s standing in a pulpit pontificating. He crashes down on people and makes them feel bad … and yet he’s running a multistate spice ring, and he’s dragging his own people into it.”
Jaynes now faces federal charges and is expected to plead guilty Nov. 20. He would not comment to The Star for this story, but in court records he has acknowledged his involvement and even offered to go to jail if his church members were spared prosecution.
Deadly drugs
The years-long saga involves several interconnected cases, including charges that Jaynes distributed controlled substances and misbranded synthetic drugs. His brother-in-law, Parsons, and two other Indiana suspects, Doug Sloan, and David Neal, face similar federal charges. Attorneys for Sloan and Neal declined comment on behalf of their clients. Parsons' attorney did not respond to multiple messages from The Star.
A separate but interconnected federal case has already been resolved. Roger Upchurch, of Indianapolis, agreed to plead guilty in March to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance lookalike and money laundering. He admitted being "a leading member of (an) international drug trafficking organization,"