It has been more than 40 years since Dana Beal came to prominence as a theoretician for the Youth International Party, known as the Yippies, and embarked on a long career in the world of countercultural politics.
Since 1973, Mr. Beal and other Yippies have used a brick tenement on Bleecker Street, just west of the East Village, as a base for planning large-scale events, including demonstrations at national political conventions and worldwide marches calling for the legalization of medical marijuana, among other causes.
But Mr. Beal, 61, was far from the national stage last week when he found himself arrested on charges of money laundering in Mattoon, Ill., about 170 miles south of Chicago. He is being held in a county jail in nearby Charleston, awaiting an appearance before a judge on Thursday.
Ronald Tulin, a Charleston lawyer representing Mr. Beal, said that the police found his client with a large sum of cash, which was sniffed by police dogs.
"They're saying the money smelled like marijuana," Mr. Tulin said.
Mick McAvoy, the first assistant state's attorney for Coles County, said that officers from the Mattoon Police Department arrived on June 3 at a restaurant to respond to a report that two women were fighting inside. The police determined that the women were traveling with two men, one of them Mr. Beal, in a van parked outside, he said.
Mr. McAvoy said witnesses told the police that Mr. Beal had placed bags beneath nearby vehicles. Mr. McAvoy said the police found two duffel bags containing more than $150,000 in cash. At that point, Mr. McAvoy said, a drug-sniffing dog was brought in to smell the bags.
A spokeswoman for the Coles County sheriff said that Mr. Beal was facing a charge of money laundering. He is being held in $250,000 bail.
A. J. Weberman, a fellow Yippie who helped to popularize the practice of garbology (searching through trash for journalistic clues), said Mr. Beal had told friends that he was traveling with cash because he was planning to finance a clinic. Mr. Weberman said the clinic was to study ibogaine, a derivative of an African shrub that researchers have said can be used to counter addiction.
Mr. Beal is a longtime advocate of ibogaine, which he says produces a trancelike state when ingested that lasts for hours and can be used to interrupt addiction to heroin, nicotine and alcohol.
With a bushy white moustache that makes him resemble a Civil War-era cavalry colonel, Mr. Beal is a well-known figure in the East Village, where he often roams the streets wearing a tan corduroy blazer and brown leather boots. Over the past several days, friends have been sending e-mail messages and posting notes online, trying to raise bail money.
"I'm giving the whole Internet a shout out to raise money," said David Peel, a Yippie and musician from the East Village. "We don't want to see Dana Beal entrenched in jail."
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