JOCKO'S BAR OWNER GETS 19 YEARS

Madison - The former owner of a downtown bar where 95 pounds of cocaine
changed hands during the past decade was sentenced Tuesday in federal court
to 19 years in prison for operating a drug house.

Robert F. "Boot" Schuh, 50, a former Bucky Badger mascot at the University
of Wisconsin, became an "aging but lovable fraternity boy" and operated his
Jocko's Rocket Ship Lounge in the "anything goes" atmosphere of the 1960s,
U.S. District Judge John Shabaz said.

Fueled by addictions to alcohol and cocaine, Schuh permitted cocaine dealers
to package cocaine in the basement of the W. Gilman St. tavern and make
sales to hundreds of bar customers over the years, Shabaz said in sentencing
Schuh.

The bar was "the place" to obtain cocaine between 1989 and December 1999,
when a police raid effectively closed the tavern and resulted in the
indictment last spring of eight other bartenders or people suspected of
dealing cocaine, according to court records.

Schuh's attorney, Ronald Benavides, sought leniency, arguing that his client
was often so intoxicated that he barely knew of the rampant cocaine-dealing.

But the judge said Schuh was the organizer even if he was a frequently
intoxicated one.

Schuh was given the longest prison term of any of the Jocko's defendants
sentenced so far. Jeremiah C. Matthews, 31, who admitted selling cocaine at
Jocko's for three years, was sentenced Tuesday to eight years and four
months in prison.