Stephen Redwood busted by feds for pot due to child porn investigation

As you know, marijuana laws in Colorado are very different from those maintained by the U.S. government. Recreational pot possession and distribution is allowed here under a myriad of circumstances, while the feds continue to consider it very illegal -- and if they find cannabis during the course of an investigation, they will seize the stuff and prosecute its possessor to the fullest extent of the law.

Which brings us to Schmuck of the Week nominee Stephen Redwood, who was busted for weed after agents zeroed on him for a particular vile offense: child pornography.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Redwood "transported and shipped" (via computer) child porn between July 7, 2012 and November 24, 2013, and received similar images between August 14 and December 3 of 2013.

Redwood was also found in possession of child porn on January 15, when FBI agents executed a search warrant for his property, located in Montezuma County, in southwest Colorado; his Facebook page lists his hometown as the lovely, bucolic community of Mancos. But that's not all they spotted. They also stumbled upon a marijuana grow, including live plants and dried pot said to be "ready for use."

The U.S. Attorney's office maintains that Redwood possessed ganja with the intent to distribute it between October 31, 2013 and January 15, when the FBI came knocking. And while the marijuana issues would seem to be entirely separate from his other alleged offenses, there's one quasi-link: At a detention hearing, prosecutors suggested that Redwood had sold pot to minors, including a fourteen-year-old.

The result is even more trouble for Redwood.

This week, following his indictment by a grand jury on April 3, he was charged with one count of transporting child pornography and four counts of receiving it -- offenses that carry a potential penalty of five-to-twenty years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine for each count. In addition, he faces a count of child-porn possession punishable by as much as ten years in stir.

And as if that's not enough, Redwood is looking at single counts involving distribution and manufacture/cultivation of marijuana. Each of them could net five more years in federal prison and another pair of $250,000 fines.

If Redwood hadn't attracted the feds' attention with child porn, they probably would never have discovered his pot stash -- and he wouldn't have been recognized for schmuckiness of a particularly skeezy sort.

More from our Schmuck of the Week archive: "Allen Quint allegedly proves that pimping isn't just a young man's game."