Wesley Gage WeldonUPDATE: Chris Townley, the former attorney for Wesley Gage Weldon, said his client's sentence in the local case will run at the same time as his 20-year sentence in the federal methamphetamine distribution case.
Weldon pleaded guilty to terroristic threats, possession of methamphetamine and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. He also pleaded guilty to possession of an explosive device while under indictment for possession of methamphetamine.
The prosecution dismissed charges of kidnapping, aggravated sexual battery, attempted murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, possession of explosive devices and possession of drug related objects. The prosecution also dismissed six other counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
Townley pointed out that Weldon was not in the field when the victim was beaten and raped.
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ORIGINAL STORY: RINGGOLD, Ga. - A group of methamphetamine dealers pleaded guilty over the last week in a case in which they beat up, raped and abandoned a man under a hay bale in a Catoosa County field because of lost money.
Lacey Marie Paty, Richard Lee Rush and Wesley Gage Weldon were about to drive from Weldon's Ringgold home to Atlanta to buy a kilogram of methamphetamine on Jan. 13, 2017, when they realized they were missing some cash, according to police interviews with some of the defendants and the victim in the case. Weldon tore apart his house, looking for the money, while Paty and Rush questioned others inside the house. (In some interviews, the defendants said Weldon was missing $500. But Paty later told police he was missing $2,300.)
Several people came and went from the house that night. While looking through a man's backpack, Paty said, she and Weldon found their handguns. The man, who had been living with Weldon for about three months, didn't have permission to hold their guns. Paty and Weldon concluded he must have stolen money, too, Paty later told police.
Lacey Marie PatyPaty, Rush and Nathan Troy Coker told the man to get in a car with them. Supposedly, they had a lead on who might have taken the money, and they needed the man's help. Rush drove from Weldon's house down Potts Road. But soon, he turned back the other way, passed Weldon's house and into a field across the street, next to a lake.
The man later told police that Rush and Paty smoked meth in the car. He said he overheard Rush say, "We need a spot to do this."
Rush parked, pointed a gun at the man and told him to strip, according to the victim. The man didn't have any money with him. But Coker said Rush ordered him to point a gun at the man's head, too. Eventually, they all got out of the car.
Richard Lee RushNext to a hay bale, Rush told the man to kneel and put his hands behind his head. The man then quickly turned around and grabbed the gun from Coker. The two wrestled on the ground. Coker and the man both later told police that Paty ran up and kicked the man, almost knocking him unconscious. (Paty later told the Catoosa County Sheriff's Office that she remained inside the vehicle during the whole attack, at the command of Rush. She said she didn't know what happened until it was too late.)
The man said Coker held him while Rush pistol-whipped him. Coker confirmed this, telling a detective that Paty pistol whipped the man, too. Coker then grabbed some booster cables off a utility truck nearby, and he said Rush and Paty tied the man up. They also bound his feet and hands with black electrical tape.
Coker said Paty and Rush raped the man with a broken-off fishing pole and a vacuum cleaner attachment.
The man told a detective that he passed out during the attack. When he came to, the group was leaving. Someone had rolled a hay bale over him. After they left, he said, he wiggled free from the bindings and ran naked to a friend's home. The friend then brought him to his aunt, who drove him to Parkridge East Hospital.
When detectives visited him, they found streaks of dried blood on the man's face, forehead and inside his left ear. Both his eyes were swollen shut. His lip was swollen, too, and smalls cuts covered his stomach.
Paty, meanwhile, told investigators that the man confessed to taking the money and stashing it in a grill in Weldon's home. Before they drove to Atlanta to meet their supplier, Paty said she yelled at Weldon, "Do you know what the [expletive] I just experienced?"
She said Weldon told her to calm down. She recalled him saying, "I just told them to find my [expletive] so we could go. We're getting out of town. Let's go."
She told police that Rush claimed the attack on the man sent a message: Nobody should try to steal from Weldon.
"Little dude wanted to start acting hard and crazy," she recalls Rush telling her, "so I showed him who was hard."
In Atlanta, she said, they met with Weldon's source, a man named Sunny. But during the same trip, police in Marietta arrested Paty for trying to steal makeup from a local Walmart. Rush, meanwhile, told investigators that he and Weldon drove the kilogram of methamphetamine to a stash house in Chattanooga.
(Rush also gave a slightly different version of the attack on the victim. He said Weldon punched the man after they saw him pocketing some of Weldon's money, knocking the man out cold. He said Paty then hit the man with a handgun, and Coker tied him up. He wasn't sure how the man ended up under a hay bale in the middle of a field.)
Local drug detectives say methamphetamine use is at an all-time high in the region, and this group was part of one of the larger methamphetamine operations. While the Catoosa County attack was still pending in local court, the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Tennessee successfully pushed for an indictment against Weldon, Rush, Paty and six other defendants as part of a criminal conspiracy. (On the night of the beating, witnesses told police that Philip Koger was also at Weldon's home. Koger now faces charges in U.S. District Court as part of another methamphetamine conspiracy.)
According to sentencing memos in that case, Weldon worked with a source in Querétaro, Mexico, who had a history of drug trafficking in Georgia and North Carolina. Rush also told the DEA that for 12 days after the attack in Catoosa County, Rush picked up a kilogram of methamphetamine every day from a source in Atlanta.
Paty, Rush and Weldon all pleaded guilty to distribution charges in the federal case. Paty received a 15-year sentence, Rush received an 11-year sentence and Weldon received a 20-year sentence.
In Catoosa County Superior Court, Paty pleaded guilty on Sept. 6 to kidnapping, four counts of aggravated assault, aggravated battery, false imprisonment and possession of methamphetamine. She received a 15-year sentence, followed by 20 years on probation. The prison sentence will run at the same time as the federal sentence she is already serving.
Rush pleaded guilty to the same charges, in addition to one count of possession of a firearm in commission of a crime. Most of his sentence will run at the same time as his federal prison sentence, but he will then have to serve 10 years for false imprisonment and five years for the firearm possession, said his attorney, Jeremy Penland.
Weldon's sentence in the local case is not clear at this time. The plea affidavit did not say which specific charges he pleaded guilty of, or what kind of punishment he would serve. Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Herbert "Buzz" Franklin did not return an email seeking clarity Wednesday.
Coker, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and received a sentence of 15 years on probation.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.