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A Georgia man is behind bars — and it’s all thanks to a family dog.
Now, the Tift County man faces a 75-month sentence.
Timothy Bernard Reese, 44, was sentenced this week, WSB-TV reports.
Reese could have faced a maximum of 20 years in prison and three years of supervised release, plus a maximum fine of $1,000,000, according to a Department of Justice press release in April, after Reese pleaded guilty.
The puzzled pooch stumbled upon a “suspicious brown satchel” bag in December of 2019, according to the release That’s when the dog’s owner, an Ochlocknee man, discovered what turned out to be 154.78 grams of methamphetamine and lottery tickets bundled together. He immediately alerted the Thomas County Sheriff’s Office. Law enforcement agents pinpointed the location and time that the lottery tickets were purchased, and found Reese using surveillance footage.
Reese is also accused of assaulting a woman, according to a report she filed with the Cairo Police Department the day after police obtained an arrest warrant. On the same day the dog found Reese’s meth, “Reese came into her room at the Grady Lodge and punched her in the face, fracturing her eye socket, and demanded to know where his methamphetamine was located,” the release states.
Officials brought Reese into custody on December 19, 2019, and he admitted that the brown satchel was his, and that he planned to distribute the drugs inside.
“It’s not every day that a family pet helps nab a drug trafficker. I want to commend the concerned Thomas County citizen and his devoted dog for helping to bring this methamphetamine dealer to justice,” Acting U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary said in the press release. “The Thomas County-Thomasville Narcotics/Vice unit continues to do an outstanding job protecting the citizens of their community and curbing the flow of deadly narcotics into south Georgia.”