A Washington man was sentenced June 30 in Flathead County District Court two years after he was arrested for trying to transport marijuana from Seattle to Wisconsin aboard Amtrak.
Marquise Constantino was given a six-year deferred sentence by Judge David M. Ortley and ordered to pay a $2,000 fine. A deferred sentence means the felony charged will be dismissed from his record if he remains law abiding for six years.
According to court records, on June 6, 2014, Constantino called Amtrak and said that he had missed his train in Seattle but that his luggage was onboard the eastbound Empire Builder. He requested that the bags be dropped off at Whitefish and that he would come the next day to retrieve them. When the train arrived in Whitefish, an Amtrak employee grabbed the luggage and smelled marijuana. The train’s conductor was informed and the police were called.
Officers found 12 bags of marijuana weighing one pound each in the suitcases and four jars of hashish. A Northwest Montana Drug Task Force agent received a search warrant and took custody of the marijuana.
The following day, Constantino arrived to claim his bags. He showed an Amtrak employee his identification and described the missing bags. Police then moved in to arrest him. Constantino told police that a man from Wisconsin was paying him to move drugs and that he had made more than 20 such trips on Amtrak in the last two years.
Constantino was charged with criminal possession of drugs with intent to distribute last summer and initially pleaded not guilty at his arraignment. Constantino pleaded guilty at a change of plea hearing earlier this spring.