RENO, Nev. (AP) — A federal judge in Nevada has ordered a 31-year-old San Francisco Bay Area man to a drug treatment facility for three months before sentencing for his arrest at Burning Man.
Robert Louis Ruenzel II was busted Aug. 27 in an RV stocked with marijuana, cocaine, psychedelic mushrooms and other drugs at the festival in the desert 120 miles north of Reno.
U.S. Magistrate William Cobb released him without bail on the condition he stop using drugs and not return to Burning Man. But Ruenzel tested positive for methamphetamine and was returned last week to the Washoe County Jail.
Prosecutors want him held there until his January sentencing. But Cobb said meth is the scourge of society and the public is better served by him getting treatment than sitting in jail.
