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The owner of a Bay County restaurant will remain behind bars after a hearing in federal court today.
Paul Gregory Francis, owner of Toucan’s restaurant in Mexico Beach, is charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
At issue at Friday’s detention hearing was whether or not Francis would be freed from jail pending his trial on federal charges.
According to his attorney, Francis only wants to spend Thanksgiving with his children and grandchildren, but the government considers Francis a flight risk and danger to the community.
Special Agent Sam Dunnivant from the Drug Enforcement Agency testified that his department, along with the Internal Revenue Service, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Bay County Sheriff’s Office served search warrants on Francis’s house and the restaurant on September 18.
Dunnivant said agents got no answer when they knocked on the door of Francis’s home. Dunnivant said when they opened the door and Francis saw them, he ran out of the house, jumped off the deck, and fled through the yard before being caught.
Dunnivant said agents found 7 guns both at Francis’s home and an apartment on the second floor of Toucan’s.
The guns, five of them loaded, included pistols, revolvers, and rifles.
Agents also found $19,000 in cash and a total of 26 grams of meth.
Dunnivant said Francis told them he had all the guns because he owed money to drug dealers and they had threatened his life.
Francis previously served about 5 years in prison on drug trafficking charges out of Massachusetts.
Federal Judge Larry Bodiford denied the request for release and ordered Francis held until his trial.
Well so much for the party at Toucans in celebration of Paul’s release :)
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It’s OK. The rest of us (who are estatic he didn’t get bail) are partying hardy. We are HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY citizens.