D.C.’s Muffin Man: Inside a District pot delivery service
By Rend Smith
“Where are the guns?”
That’s what a District resident who says he was involved with a high-end local pot delivery service called Mindy’s Muffin Madness remembers a D.C. cop asking him on July 16, 2010. The cops had just kicked in the thick green door to the Columbia Heights apartment he was in, he recalls, and the two-bedroom still smelled of the quality smoke from his contraband.
“I don’t have guns,” the man recalls answering dryly, “I have lacrosse shit.” Shortly thereafter, several other people were arrested in the dwelling, located in the Park Square apartment building on 15th Street NW. The five-story brick structure overlooks Meridian Hill Park and has an evening doorman. Once carted outside, all were charged with possession with intent to distribute. The charge can carry a one-year jail sentence as well as a $1,000 fine. But over the last year, the group—Nicholas Bortz, Carlton Stewart, and Peter Callahan—fared well in D.C. Superior Court. Prosecutors declined to prosecute all but one, Callahan, the renter of the apartment, who received one year of probation after pleading guilty to a possession with intent to distribute charge in August.
Now that it’s all over, one of the arrested is speaking about what happened on the condition of not being named because, he says, his current employers—a PR firm—don’t want to see him talking about his exploits. Still, he doesn’t seem especially abashed about Mindy’s. Pot trafficking isn’t exactly known for its body count. But the ex-dealer says he was proud to be part of a drug operation that was non-violent. “There’s enough money here for everyone,” he says of the D.C. reefer market, “but it’s got to get violent? We saw that from day one, we can play big dick all we want, but where’s it going to get us? We’re going to have police on our backs and we’re going to make this into something it shouldn’t be. Not to mention it’s just outright wrong.”
By the time the cops finished scouring the place, they’d know the guy in the apartment was telling the truth about the guns. According to court documents, there were no weapons seized. Mindy’s was strict, he says. “If you can’t work for us without carrying any weapons, you can’t work for us,” recruits were told. Police sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t allowed to speak publicly about the case, confirm the delivery service existed and that it was called “Mindy’s Muffins.”
