Blue-collar Atlanta comic Ron White was arrested Wednesday in Vero Beach, Fla., and charged with possession of marijuana.
Police had received an anonymous tip and were waiting for White when his plane landed at Vero Beach Municipal Airport, said Vero Beach police spokesman John Morrison.
When confronted by officers, White surrendered the less than three grams of marijuana and small glass smoking pipe he was carrying on him in a small bag, and he consented to a body search, Morrison said.
The entertainer told the officers the marijuana was for medicinal purposes, but had no proof to back up that claim, Morrison said. Authorities also searched the interior of his plane, but found no other signs of illegal drugs.
White, 51, was charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, both misdemeanors. He posted $1,000 bond and was released by the Indian River County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday.
According to two pilots who formerly worked for White, this isn't the first time the comedian has carried drugs onto his plane.
"They finally nailed him," said Scott Wolcott of Conyers, a veteran pilot fired by White in May after an alleged cockpit altercation. "He smokes marijuana like a chain smoker smokes cigarettes."
The cockpit fight was about White's drug use, Wolcott said, adding, "We put our foot down. Just by having any trace of his second-hand marijuana smoke in our bodies, we could lose our pilot's licenses for good."
The comedian regularly smoked marijuana during their flights, said former co-pilot Chris LaPlante - so much, in fact, "we wore oxygen masks" so they would not become impaired.
"Now it's proven that we were telling the truth," LaPlante said.
The comedian's attorney, Terry Lloyd of Lawrenceville, said the pilots are "disgruntled former employees" who are seeking money they say they're owed by his client. "The person making this complaint was fired," Lloyd said.
Wolcott and LaPlante have said that on May 11, as they were flying White's private jet over New York, an intoxicated White burst into the cockpit and threatened to fight them and crash the plane.
The FAA has been investigating, though the pilots who made the allegations say they aren't expecting anything to come of it. Lloyd said he's tried to contact FAA officials "six times, but they have not returned my calls."
Lloyd said he doesn't expect any additional charges for his client after Wednesday's arrest. He sounded optimistic how things would turn out for his client.
"As a general rule in these kind of cases," he said, "he'll likely end up with a fine and probation, with the charges dismissed, but each case varies."
White, a Texas native, owns a home in Atlanta. He rose to fame earlier this decade touring with his fellow "Blue Collar Comics" including Atlanta native Jeff Foxworthy, as well as Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy.
- Staff writer John Hollis contributed to this report
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