Ex-Utah State Basketball Player Jarred Shaw Facing Death Penalty in Indonesia For Marijuana Charges, Has Been in Jail 5 Months, Money Stolen by 3 Attorneys, Yet To Receive Arrest Documents or Trial Date

What a nightmare. I think we can all agree that the #1 lesson here is to never, under any circumstances, do drugs in Indonesia join an overseas professional basketball league east of Europe. It's simply not worth it. You won't make that much money. The novelty of living on the polar opposite side of the world will eventually wear off. You will inevitably get bored and order 869 grams of marijuana edibles to your apartment where you'll be dragged away to prison by a SWAT team's worth of officers. Unfortunately, there is only one Merchant of Death to be used as a trading piece, and we already used him on Brittney Griner. 

I wrote this blog after Jarred Shaw's initial arrest back in May.

As it turns out, Indonesia takes marijuana VERY seriously. Some might say too seriously. Like honestly, Indonesia. Just chill out man. They can quite literally have people put to death by firing squad for possessing marijuana. That's what Jarred Shaw in facing now. 

Eight people were executed by Indonesia by a 13-member firing squad in 2015 for drug smuggling: two Australians, four Nigerians, a Brazilian and an Indonesian.

While he feels he has paid enough money to avoid the death penalty, he still doesn’t know how he’ll fare in the Indonesia judicial system. It has been reported that more than 500 people are on death row — most of them for drug-related crimes.

As it also turns out, the justice system in Indonesia doesn't quite move with the same efficiency as it does here in the states. Because ever since Jarred Shaw was hauled off to an Indonesian prison, according to an interview with Sports Illustrated, there has essentially been zero development in his case. 

Five months in prison, and Shaw still hasn’t seen any of the arrest documents outlining the case against him and has no clue when he’ll go to trial. He finally has a local attorney he can trust, but Shaw said that’s only after three attorneys made promises, accepted his money, and did nothing.

“I’ve already paid $30,000 in attorney fees, but they’ve frozen my accounts,” said Shaw, who has started a site to help raise legal fees. “At times, I really feel helpless. There are times where I feel that, basically, I’m all alone.”

More or less, all that's happened was after his arrest, Shaw was paraded out for a news conference at the airport, and made to face a wall as officials assured the public they were doing all they could to keep dangerous Delta-9 gummies off their streets. 

Translation – Jarred Dwayne Shaw, a basketball player for the Tangerang Hawks, was arrested on May 7, 2025, for allegedly smuggling marijuana candy from Bangkok, Thailand. Police found 20 packages containing 132 "candy" pills, allegedly designed to resemble vitamins. 

He collaborated with a Thai woman in this case and allegedly intended to distribute the drugs to other basketball players in Indonesia. 

He is now being charged under the Narcotics Law, which carries a potential penalty, including the death penalty or life imprisonment.

Since then, it's been nothing. Still no trial set. Shaw has yet to be presented with any record of his arrest. Three separate lawyers seemingly robbed him blind (although apparently that's how you avoid death row there? just keep forking over money to God knows who and hopefully they'll decide to take it easy?)

Shaw is currently being held at the Tangerang Prison, where just a few years ago, a fire killed 49 of the 122 inmates who were living there. To go from being the star player on your Indonesian basketball team, coming off an IBL Finals performance in which he racked up 28 PTS & 12 REB's (0-for-10 from the field), to sleeping in an Indonesian prison that very night. It's tough to imagine a more drastic/sudden change in lifestyle than that. All because he didn't know marijuana was considered "bad" there.

“I was having a rough patch during the [2025 IBL] season, and I had the package sent,” Shaw said. “I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. I had no idea about the laws here.

That's a bit of a tough quote to have out there. At bare minimum, you should "have an idea" about the laws of the country in which you live. You gotta know as a 6-foot-11 American basketball player, you're a walking target in a country (where the average height of men is 5-foot-4). I've never been to Indonesia, or looked into their drug laws prior to reading this story, but if you'd have asked me, "Do you think Indonesia has chill opinions on drugs?", I'd have been pretty confident in guessing they don't. Before you order hundreds of grams worth of THC to your apartment, it's probably worth a Google search to double check whether or not you can be put to death for it.

For what it's worth, Jarred Shaw also has Crohn's Disease, which he cites as his reason for ordering such a large quantity of edibles in the first place. The THC helped to relieve his symptoms. I'm guessing the tall, successful, American basketball player's bowel disease won't necessarily tug at the heartstrings of the Indonesian justice system. But it's not stopping Jarred Shaw's legal team from trying.

“This is my first international case,” West [Shaw's lawyer] said Wednesday following his meeting with the prosecutor in Jakarta. “I thought the meeting was useful, and I found that the officials here really aren’t familiar with Crohn’s disease. We’re going to try to fly a doctor in from the United States to make a presentation so that the prosecutors and judges here can better understand Jarred’s situation.”

West is hopeful that celebrities who support the Last Prisoner Project (NBA Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony and Pro Football Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson were among the celebrities at the organization’s gala in New York last week) might be able to amplify Shaw’s situation to garner support in the United States.

“Maybe we can reach some people in the NBA that have ties to cannabis, to help raise awareness,” West said. “I’m going to do everything I can to help. I have a goal, and that’s to get Jarred home before Christmas.”

Don't do drugs in Indonesia kids. Or any foreign country where marijuana is still treated like heroin. Especially if you're not really good at basketball. Jarred Shaw might be just barely good enough to dig himself out of this one. But if you can't even dunk… good luck get anybody's attention back in America.