Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 26, 1993 TAG: 9301260219
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SAD CLOWN GETS JAIL FOR MARIJUANA LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
Chucko the Clown was sent to prison Monday for selling marijuana, an act of desperation that he tried to conceal behind a costume and painted smile."It was an escape," Charles E. Gowen said. "Being Chucko the Clown gave me time not to be me."
A five-time convicted marijuana dealer and the former owner of Balloons Over Roanoke, Gowen was sentenced to four years in prison.
He testified in Roanoke Circuit Court that the clown costume disguised the real Charles Gowen - a 40-year-old drug addict so depressed that he sometimes hinted at killing himself in telephone messages he left on his business' answering machine.
Police were dispatched to Gowen's home several times after customers, calling for balloons to be delivered by a singing clown, heard the darker side of Gowen's personality and became concerned for his safety.
But when police went to his Franklin Road home one night in March 1991, it was for a different reason. A search warrant outlined their suspicions that Gowen was selling marijuana to support a growing drug habit and a failing business.
Vice officers seized 2 pounds of marijuana and charged Gowen with possessing the drug with intent to distribute.
Shortly before Judge Clifford Weckstein sentenced him to four years in prison Monday, Gowen tried to explain why he was in court on his fifth marijuana charge since 1974.
For a while, it seemed as if he had his life turned around.
After graduating from Roanoke's Hegira House drug treatment program in 1983, Gowen went to work for Balloons Over Roanoke. Part of the job was dressing as a clown, gorilla or Batman and delivering balloons to parties, sometimes with a song.
Gowen went from deliverer to owner in a couple of years.
Then the economy went sour about the same time that Gowen's mother fell ill and was unable to take orders as his secretary.
"I still thought the economy would turn around and I would survive," Gowen wrote in a letter to Weckstein. "I had to, because my Mom was so proud of me when she told people her son owned Balloons Over Roanoke.
"It was really the first time I had been a success."
Then, in 1990, the mother of his 8-year-old goddaughter was killed in a motorcycle accident. Three months later, the child's father was sent to prison.
In tears, Gowen testified that he went back to smoking marijuana "trying to deal with the pain and the hurt."
It wasn't long before "I was smoking it all the time," he said.
But as he hid his troubles in a cloud of marijuana smoke, Gowen found a bittersweet solace. He knew that what he was doing could send him back to jail, which drove him even deeper into depression.
Once he even fashioned a noose to hang himself from his parent's back porch.
It was during those days, he said, that his only escape was to dress up as Chucko and make children laugh.
"It made me happy to dress up as a clown and go out and entertain kids," he said. "That business was everything I had."
The business shut down after Gowen was arrested, although he said he still hopes to come back to Roanoke and reopen it one day.
In the past, Gowen has been an advocate of legalizing marijuana. In a 1990 letter to the editor of the Roanoke Times & World-News, he wrote that marijuana laws were old and unjust, and that the drug was safer than alcohol.
"While the sellers of booze get rewarded with paychecks, the sellers of pot get prison," he wrote.
Gowen had since changed his views, and says he now wants to speak to community groups and young people about the dangers of drugs - even marijuana.
His attorney, Tony Anderson, said it shows "no matter how lightly or non-addictive marijuana may be thought of by some people in the system, it certainly has to be taken seriously."
Although Gowen had faced a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison, Regional Drug Prosecutor Melvin Hill asked for a sentence of five years.
Hill said that while lawmakers have reduced the possible punishment for marijuana offenses in recent years - recognizing it is not as harmful as other drugs like crack - Gowen's past record alone was reason for a prison sentence.
Although he was sentenced to four years in a state prison, Gowen will probably serve his time in the city jail. To deal with overcrowded state prisons, Virginia has a law that allows anyone sentenced to five years or less to serve the time in a local jail.
When he gets out, he will have a six-year suspended term while on probation.
Gowen said he hopes to carry a more serious message than he did as Chucko the Clown: "If you get involved with drugs, your life will fall apart."