Things aren’t looking too good right now for Ryan Edwards.
But then again, have they ever?
Still, things are looking especially bleak for him right now, considering he’s been in jail for the past few days.
There have been a few conflicting reports about what happened, but we do know that Ryan’s legal troubles started last year, when he was arrested for possession of heroin.
He was sentenced to a year of probation, which he broke back in March by failing a drug test — for that, he was sentenced to six more months of probation.
On Monday, he was arrested for a third time.
There have been conflicting reports about what happened, with some outlets claiming he was arrested for possession again and others claiming the arrest was for failing to appear in court back in May.
Either way, it’s bad news for Ryan — bad enough that he’s being held without bond.
That means that he’ll be hanging out in jail until his next court date, which is on August 6th.
And after that?
Well, it’s not looking great.
Nashville attorney Ben Raybin is speaking out about Ryan’s case, and although he’s not working for Ryan or connected to him at all, he does have a good idea about how the law works, and especially how it works in Tennessee, Ryan’s home state.
About the possibility of Ryan spending any real time in jail, he says “It really depends on the case, as far as whether somebody would be going to jail or rehab after getting busted for heroin possession.”
“Usually in this state we do try to send people to treatment for when they’re found with drugs,” he explains.
But in cases like Ryan’s, when a person has violated probation multiple times, “then at that point the judge says enough is enough and says they are going to jail and at that point they can put all the offender’s sentences into effect.”
For Ryan specifically, he says “I can tell you he is facing up to 11 months and 29 days in jail just on this most recent charge of simple heroin possession.”
“But that’s not all because he has a prior suspended sentence as well as probation that the judge could choose to add to his sentence.”
“To break it down,” he continues, “Ryan has the six months of probation he was sentenced to (in March 2018) as well as a suspended sentence of 11 months and 29 days stemming back to his very first arrest.”
“He was able to get that sentence suspended but that does not mean it’s gone.”
“It’s hanging over his head,” he says, “and since he has violated probation, if the judge chooses to he can do what I call un-suspend it.”
Essentially, a judge could take all that time, add it up, and Ryan could spend two and a half years in jail.
Ben does add that he thinks “it’s probably unlikely that he would get totally maxed out on all of that but he is potentially facing two and a half years total in jail at this point.”
We’re not lawyers, of course, but it does seem unlikely that a judge would just throw a few more months of probation to Ryan at this point.
Which is especially unfortunate, considering his wife, Mackenzie Standifer, is pregnant with his child and is due in just over two months.
It’s also a little embarrassing, considering Ryan and Mackenzie were going on and on last week about how sober he is and how hard he’s been working on his recovery.
Remember, Mackenzie said that MTV told them that they were letting them go because “they don’t want to show Ryan as a recovering addict.”
But reports claimed that what actually happened was that Maci Bookout told the network that she refused to film if Ryan was filming — Bristol Palin was hired while MTV tried to figure out what to do.
Maci’s reasoning behind her demand was allegedly that she believed Ryan was still on drugs and she didn’t want Bentley to be able to watch his father spiral even further out of control.
Knowing what we know now, it seems like there’s quite a bit of truth to that.
Whatever happens, whether it turns out to be years in jail, we hope Ryan is able to get clean, for real this time.
Goodness knows we love Teen Mom drama, but this is just too much.