By Ray King
A Pine Bluff man was arrested Thursday after a search warrant was served at his apartment where guns and suspected marijuana was found.
Mario Marchbanks, 40, was taken into custody after a Tri-County Drug Task Force Investigator and a Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy stopped a vehicle Marchbanks was driving in Altheimer and brought him back to Pine Bluff.
During a court hearing Friday, Deputy Prosecutor Lisa McGriff said task force investigators, sheriff’s deputies, and Pine Bluff Police Vice and Narcotics Detectives served the warrant at an apartment at 501 W. Barraque St., in response to reports of distribution of illegal narcotics.
McGriff said the apartment is a studio apartment and has only one room.
When Marchbanks was interviewed, he said he found the rusty gun in the grass at his apartments, the other handguns belonged to his partner that he met at the apartments, the rifles were his and so was the marijuana. He said he had sold some marijuana this year but wasn’t selling anymore.
Pine Bluff District Judge John Kearney set a $10,000 bond for Marchbanks after ruling prosecutors have probable cause to charge him with possession of a controlled substance with the purpose to deliver and simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms.
Marchbanks said he would hire his own attorney.
