Middle Georgia man busted for ‘moonshine’ tells police it was ‘a hobby’
The police in Eatonton on Wednesday made what anymore in these parts amounts to an unusual discovery: a suspected moonshine still in a man’s back-yard shed.
Cops in the Putnam County seat had gone to the home of Charles Eugene Roberts on Cherokee Drive after complaints that he allegedly shot at some people who live on nearby Custer Avenue, using what the police later said was a powerful pellet rifle.
It wasn’t immediately known what may have prompted the gunfire, but Roberts, 76, forked over the rifle and let the cops search his property, acting Police Chief Howell Cardwell told The Telegraph on Thursday.
During the search there on the west side of town in a subdivision known as Arrowhead Landing, officers found what appeared to be a functioning copper-like moonshine still and two dozen or so kegs of alleged bootleg liquor.
“It was something I ain’t seen in many years,” Cardwell said.
“He had the kegs neatly dated.”
The distilled spirits were seized as evidence. The precise variety of the apparently high-proof elixir was uncertain.
“I’m not gonna say I know what moonshine smells like,” Cardwell said, “but that’s what it smelled like. It had a strong alcohol odor to it.”
Roberts was charged with three counts of aggravated assault, unlawfully manufacturing alcohol, a felony, and possession of untaxed distilled spirits.
He declined to say whether he peddled the suspected white lightning, the chief said. “He told me it was a hobby.”