OAKLAND — Federal prosecutors have charged a Bay Area man with distributing meth in Contra Costa County after he was arrested twice in two weeks with bagged-up amounts of the drug, authorities said in court records.
Joseph McClenahan faces a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 40, along with a potential $5 million fine, if convicted of the methamphetamine distribution charge, court records show. After being arrested on a no-bail warrant April 8, he went before a magistrate judge for arraignment earlier this week. His preliminary hearing has been set for May 4.
McClenahan was arrested in late February in Pittsburg after a city officer clocked him doing 91 miles per hour on Highway 4, according to the criminal complaint. A search of the car yielded around $2,000 in cash and more than a quarter ounce of methamphetamine, authorities said. The officer also found a pistol concealed in a sock in the back seat of McClenahan’s Chevy Tahoe.
Less than two weeks later, Contra Costa County Sheriff’s deputies searched a Red GMC Yukon, with McClenahan inside, that was parked near a PG&E generator site in Crockett. The deputies reportedly found “multiple bags” containing an undisclosed amount of methamphetamine and around $600, the complaint alleges.
According to the complaint, McClenahan admitted on both occasions to selling drugs for an unnamed friend in exchange for methamphetamine. He allegedly told the deputies he smokes meth every two to three hours and could have made $1,000 off the bagged-up drugs that were in the Yukon.
Prosecutors said in court records McClenahan has “approximately” 17 felony convictions and was four months away from being discharged from parole when he was arrested in Pittsburg.