A man in New Haven, Connecticut has been sentenced to six years in jail for distributing drugs and possessing firearms and ammo, thus violating the conditions of his supervised release after a prior federal conviction. Why are we writing about this at Kotaku, a video game and pop culture website? Because the drugs were shaped like Mario’s head, for some reason.
33-year-old Ronnel Rogers was arrested during a traffic stop in 2024, and at the time of his arrest, he had fentanyl, meth, cocaine, and heroin on his person with the intention to distribute them. And this included meth pills shaped like “cartoon characters that could be mistaken for candy.” The District Attorney’s Office published a photograph of the pills, and yep, those pills are shaped like Mario, down to the finest details. He’s got his cap, complete with the big “M” in the center and his iconic mustache.
Rogers pled guilty to the possession and intent to distribute charges in October of last year, and was officially sentenced on Monday, May 11 to 63 months of imprisonment for possession and distribution, with an additional nine months being tacked on for violating his supervised release terms. Prior to this, Rogers was sentenced to 37 months in prison for narcotics distribution and firearm possession, with another 14 months added for violating a previous supervised release agreement. The sentence was reduced to seven months, with Rogers being released from prison in March of 2024, two months before he was found with the Mario pills.
Why were they shaped like Mario, specifically? No clue. Maybe the “M” on his hat stands for “Meth” in this context.
