In 2007, after retiring from a long career as a heart surgeon, Dr. David Allen came to California and set up a practice issuing medical marijuana recommendations to qualified patients under state law. The 50-acre property he left behind in Mississippi, which was occupied by his sister and brother-in-law, became the target of a narcotics task force raid in early 2009. During that raid, law enforcement agents claimed that they found hashish, marijuana and cultivation equipment, all valued at approximately $1000. That was enough for authorities to arrest Dr. Allen’s relatives, start forfeiture proceedings on the 50-acre property, and issue a warrant for the doctor himself, who was in California at the time of the raid. Dr. Allen surrendered himself to authorities after learning of the bust and was immediately taken into custody. He endured a harrowing transport cross-country to Mississippi, only to bail out and return to California while awaiting the resolution of his case. Meanwhile, during a trip back to Mississippi in December 2009, Dr. Allen was arrested on new accusations that he was tampering with witnesses in his case and attempting to bribe them. From a Mississippi jail, where he was thereafter held without bail, the doctor denied those allegations and claimed he was merely trying to help his sister. In March 2010, a grand jury indicted Dr. Allen on three counts related to the February 2009 raid, including the possession, cultivation and transfer of marijuana. If ultimately convicted, he faces decades in prison and fines upwards of $1 million.

Dr. David B. Allen #2009120099
SCRCF
M Zone
1420 Industrial Park Rd.
Wiggins, MS 39577


Link to Dr. Allen discussing his case on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dubhNbpg750

Former deep-sea diver Matthew Zugsberger was seriously injured while working on a pipeline for an oil company.  That accident left him with damaged vertebrae, a pronounced limp, nausea and chronic pain, which he treated with physician-approved marijuana in compliance with California’s medical use laws.  In December 2008, security personnel at Sacramento International Airport discovered some three pounds of marijuana in Zugsberger’s possession while he was attempting to board a flight to Louisiana.  Zugsberger was hit with criminal charges as a result, but just weeks before his trial began, the California Supreme Court threw out legislated quantity limits for medical marijuana patients in the state.  This meant that Zugsberger’s defense would rely entirely on demonstrating what quantities were related to his personal medical needs.  When he went to trial in March 2010, Zugsberger submitted a letter from his recommending physician saying that three pounds was an appropriate amount for his possession.  Zugsberger also told jurors how he intended to use the marijuana that was stashed in his luggage at the Sacramento airport – he was going to fly it to a master chef in New Orleans who had agreed to put it into medical marijuana edibles that Zugsberger would then transport back to California for his own use.  The jury, however, simply didn’t buy the story and concluded that Zugsberger had more marijuana than necessary for the two-week trip.  After a near-deadlock and substantial confusion over their deliberation instructions, jurors eventually acquitted Zugsberger of possession with the attempt to sell, but convicted him on a charge of simple possession and on the illegal transport of marijuana.  He received a sentence of 120 days in jail.

Medical marijuana grower Bryan Epis has been caught in a legal nightmare ever since 1997, when law enforcement agents seized 458 marijuana plants and various computer documents from his home in Chico, CA.  That raid occurred mere months after California voters legalized medical marijuana statewide, and Epis’s case quickly inspired outrage in the activist community.  Not only was he charged with criminal cultivation, prosecutors used documents taken from the search to charge him with conspiracy to cultivate over a thousand plants.  Epis was unable to mount a medical defense to his charges because he was prosecuted on the federal level, where state medical marijuana laws don’t apply.  When the case went to trial in 2002, prosecutors relied heavily on out-of-context excerpts from the seized computer documents, which had been printed from different computer programs in a manner that made them appear as a series of separate documents involving various locations.  The jury ended up finding Epis guilty and he was given the mandatory minimum sentence: ten years in federal prison.  Epis was incarcerated for over two years before getting released on bail pending appeal in August 2004, a move that gave him five and a half years of freedom to spend with his young daughter.  However, in spite of claims of prosecutorial misconduct and missing evidence, Epis lost round after round of his appeal.  By February 22nd, 2010, he had exhausted his legal options and was taken back into custody to serve the remainder of his ten-year sentence.

BRYAN EPIS  X-3311197  6E302A
Sacramento County Main Jail
651 "I" Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
 

Sign and help circulate a petition to pardon Bryan Epis, visit www.bestlodging.com/politics

Veteran activist Michael “Mickey” Martin has a broad base of experience in the medical marijuana industry, including work as the director of T-Comp Consulting and the associate editor of West Coast Cannabis magazine. However, Mickey is most widely known for his work in manufacturing food-based medicines through a company called Tainted Inc., later renamed Compassion Medicinal Edibles. This company, which produced cannabis-infused food products for medical marijuana patients, operated for many years and pioneered safety standards for the entire industry. Unfortunately, a law enforcement raid shut the company down in September 2007, leaving Mickey and three other Tainted Inc. employees facing federal charges. Since California’s medical marijuana laws don’t provide a defense in federal court, Mickey ended up pleading guilty to a single count of “conspiracy to manufacture a mixture or substance containing marijuana.” In September 2008, in a courtroom packed with medical marijuana activists and community leaders, a federal judge gave Mickey a 24-month sentence. He served the first half of this term on home detention but was required to spend the remainder in a halfway house. Following a large public protest on January 4th, 2010, Mickey checked into a community corrections facility in San Francisco. Although he avoided hard prison time, he and his family have endured significant hardships as a result of his sentence. He has chronicled these struggles at http://www.freetainted.com

Michael Martin
111 Taylor St.
San Francisco, CA 94102

Alice Wiegand and her husband Jeffre Sanderson were living a quiet, untroubled life in northern California’s rural Plumas County in the summer of 2006. The couple had a nice home, a baby son named Jamie, and an impressive organic vegetable garden. But they had something else that caught the attention of law enforcement and triggered a raid that shattered their lives: a plot of approximately sixty-four tall marijuana plants that could be seen from the sky. When sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant at the home, they discovered another grow area: a basement room where over a hundred marijuana clones were in production. However, they also found something that made the district attorney refuse to prosecute the case: evidence showing the grow was a collective garden that supplied ten patients whose doctors had approved their use of marijuana under California’s Compassionate Use Act.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office had no such reluctance. Since federal law does not recognize state medical marijuana protections, the case was promptly taken over by federal prosecutors. In the months that followed, Jeffre and Alice struggled to stabilize their family. After bailing out of jail, they got Jamie back from Child Protective Services, and they also welcomed the birth of a new son named Jahson.

The family would not remain whole for long. They lost both children to CPS in October 2007, when Jeffre was arrested for cultivating a new crop of marijuana. He defended himself in federal court by claiming that he used marijuana religiously as a Rasta, but the judge didn’t buy the argument and ruled against Jeffre in November 2007. That same month, Jeffre and Alice accepted plea deals to resolve the charges against them. Jeffre pled guilty to cultivating under 80kg of marijuana, a charge that does not carry a mandatory minimum sentence. Alice made a guilty plea on conspiracy to cultivate, and she agreed to forfeit the family’s home and farm as part of the deal.

In April 2008, a federal judge sentenced Jeffre to eighteen months in prison and gave Alice the lesser term of six months. However, the judge allowed the couple to serve staggered sentences, so that Alice could remain out of prison long enough to regain custody of the two children. Jeffre’s eighteen months ended up being like a tour of California’s penal institutions: a combination of pre-sentencing jail time in Sacramento, stints at prisons in San Bernardino and Herlong, and several months at a halfway house in San Francisco.

After Jeffre’s release, it was Alice’s turn. On July 13th, 2009, Alice said goodbye to her children and drove with Jeffre to her temporary new home: a prison camp for women in Dublin, California.

“Her sons are being told the truth,” said Pam Ayoob, Alice’s mother-in-law. “Mommy has to go to jail for growing plants in the yard.”

Read more on this story: http://www.medicalmarijuanaofamerica.com/court-reports/sanderson.html

After an August 2004 raid on Charles "Eddy" Lepp's northern California property, the Drug Enforcement Administration reported the seizure of 32,524 marijuana plants. According to Lepp, these plants were being grown by members of his Rasta ministry for qualified medical patients under California’s Compassionate Use Act. To the federal government, which doesn’t recognize state medical marijuana law, the grow was considered entirely illegal and Lepp was prosecuted accordingly. Over the next four years, he won a number of victories against the U.S. government, overcoming charges from a botched sales sting against him and getting the search warrant for his raid thrown out of court. The case went downhill, however, when the judge ruled that the plants could remain in evidence because they were in plain sight from a public highway. The same judge subsequently denied Lepp’s religious use claim, ruling that rights of religious expression were overriden by the government’s interest in preventing the diversion of such a large quantity of marijuana. Lepp was still reeling from that denial, which he vehemently disputes, when his case finally went to trial in late August 2008. Lepp himself took the stand in order to tell the jury that he was not guilty because he had not personally grown any of the marijuana; as he put it, he had simply opened up his land for use by members of his Rasta church. However, Lepp was unable to convince the jury of this claim. His emotional testimony about caregiving for his recently-deceased wife also failed to sway the jurors towards acquittal, and they quickly returned guilty verdicts on all charges. During Lepp’s sentencing in May 2009, the judge reluctantly sentenced him to ten years in federal prison, saying the penalty was excessive but that she was constrained by mandatory minimum sentencing laws.  Read more about Eddy's case here.

CHARLES EDWARD LEPP #90157-011
FCI VICTORVILLE, MEDIUM I, SATELLITE CAMP
P.O. BOX 5100
ADELANTO, CA 92301

Will Foster

Will Foster's lengthy battle with Oklahoma's justice system was featured in Shattered Lives: Portraits from America’s Drug War.  As the book relates, Foster received a 93-year sentence in Oklahoma for growing a small medical marijuana garden to treat his rheumatoid arthritis.  On appeal, he was later able to get his sentence reduced to 20 years.  He ended up serving 4.5 years in prison before being released in 2001.

However, Oklahoma wasn't done with Foster. Although he had successfully completed his supervised release two and a half years after moving to the Bay Area, the parole board issued a warrant to get him back to serve more time.  Their excuse was that they had made a mistake when calculating the length of his parole.

Things came to a head when Foster was raided and charged with cultivation in northern California, although he claims the grow was legal under the state's medical marijuana law.  After keeping Foster in jail for a year, Sonoma County prosecutors dropped the charges against him.  By then, however, Oklahoma parole authorities demanded he return to the state to finish his original sentence.  Foster tried to fight the extradition on grounds of habeas corpus, but was nonetheless returned to Oklahoma in September 2009. 

Two months later, though, the parole board and the state governor decided that Foster should be released.  He walked free in late November 2009.

Charles C. Lynch is the former owner and managing Caregiver for Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers in Morro Bay.

The dispensary opened on April 1 2006 with the blessing of the city and even joined the Chamber of Commerce.  In July 2006 the dispensary was granted a Conditional Use Permit from the City of Morro Bay to include a Medical Cannabis Nursery at the dispensary.

David Davidson and his partner Cynthia Blake were raided by Tehama County Sheriffs in July 2003, when officers seized the medical marijuana gardens at their homes in Oakland and Red Bluff, CA. The pair was arrested and charged with cultivation and possession for sale, in spite of claims that they were legitimate caregivers under California law. The plant count was soon the subject of contentious dispute -- the number varied between 36 and 1803, depending on which source was asked. This matter was going to be sorted out in court in Tehama County, but the plan to prosecute the pair was diverted from local hands and onto the desks of federal authorities in January 2004. During a hearing in a Tehama County courtroom, Davidson and Blake were told by the Deputy District Attorney that charges against them would be dropped...but the prospect of vindication quickly turned into a nightmare as the two defendants were swept away from their attorneys and into federal custody. By the time they bailed out of jail, the harsh realities of federal prosecution had begun to settle in. Davidson subsequently fled, and Blake stayed to answer to the charges that threatened to land her in prison for decades. After being offered leniency in exchange for information against her partner, Blake agreed to a plea deal that only got her time behind bars whittled down to only a few months. Shortly thereafter, Davidson was captured in New Mexico and brought to Sacramento County Jail, where he waited nearly three years before accepting a plea deal for time served.  He was finally released in April 2010.

The history of Tom Kikuchi's case goes back to July 2002, when he and Stephanie Landa were both arrested for their role in a medical marijuana grow operation in San Francisco. The pair maintains that they were given the blessing of the San Francisco Police Department, who later raided the operation and turned the case over to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution. This change of jurisdiction put the defendants in greater peril, since the federal government refuses to recognize state laws permitting medical marijuana. Stripped of their defense and facing a trial that could have resulted in life behind bars, Kikuchi and Landa eventually pled guilty to a single charge of maintaining a place for the manufacture of a controlled substance. Kikuchi went immediately into custody, and served out his 37-month sentence at a prison camp. But an incident in May 2007 landed him back behind bars, as prosecutors alleged he violated the terms of his supervised release due to his connection to a Los Angeles area grow house. Although the links between Kikuchi and the house were purely circumstantial, Judge William Alsup sentenced Kikuchi to the maximum sentence of two years in prison for violating his probation. He served this time in a federal institution in Arizona, then a series of halfway houses. Kikuchi was finally released from custody in June of 2009, at which time he was left to contend with state charges from the Los Angeles grow house bust.

Completely disabled from a 1997 car accident, Joe Kidwell used marijuana to treat constant pain from his severe back injuries. While living in California, Kidwell got the doctor's recommendation required under state medical marijuana laws and began cultivating a small garden. After a bust and a trial in Los Angeles Superior Court, a jury found Kidwell guilty of cultivating 14 marijuana plants. The verdict came in spite of the presentation of multiple written doctor's recommendations and the fact that two doctors testified on Kidwell's behalf. He was sentenced to a term of probation that allowed him to smoke marijuana in his house but specifically forbade him from engaging in any marijuana advocacy. Done wrong in a state where medical marijuana was supposed to be legal, Kidwell looked for greener pastures elsewhere. He ended up in Kentucky, where his cultivation activities resulted in a federal indictment against him in August 2002. In his ensuing trial, Kidwell claims he was not permitted to represent himself, and that 17 of his 18 witness were denied an opportunity to testify. Kidwell remains imprisoned, with release scheduled in 2011.

Joe Kidwell 08559-033

FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 2000
FORT DIX, NJ 08640

The year was 2002. The place was San Francisco, a city that publicly declared itself a "sanctuary" for medical marijuana. Patient and caregiver Stephanie Landa had moved from southern California to follow that promise of sanctuary, hoping to legally grow a collective garden of various strains of medicinal cannabis. Along with partners Tom Kikuchi and Kevin Gage, Landa claims she had secured specific approval from the San Francisco Police Department for the cultivation. According to Landa, an SFPD captain had even advised her on where to locate the grow operation -- close to police headquarters, for added safety. The advice began to look sinister when local officers raided the warehouse a few months afterwards, although the SFPD ultimately released the three partners without charges. When the trio was indicted by the U.S. Attorney just weeks later, however, the move appeared to be a matter of local law enforcement handing a case over to the federal government for prosecution. During the resulting court proceedings, a disparity in the plant count became an important determining factor. Although expert witness Chris Conrad had counted only 880 "rootballs" in the evidence, Landa and her co-defendants were charged with cultivating a total of 1245 plants. Now facing mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years each for exceeding the 1000 plant mark, the three co-defendants all accepted plea deals. Landa and Gage were sentenced to 41 months, while Kikuchi received the somewhat lighter sentence of 37 months. Both male defendants began serving their sentences right away, but Landa was permitted to delay her incarceration in order to care for the minor child she shared with Kikuchi. After a well-attended ceremony marking her surrender, Landa began serving her sentence in January 2007.

Stephanie Landa was released to a halfway house on October 13th, 2009.

a.k.a. "D.C. Greenhouse" of the Merced Patients Group

No one has motivated activist sensibilities of central California like Dustin Costa. A former Marine and union leader, Costa brought a wealth of organizing skills and experience to the advocacy work he did on behalf of the medical marijuana movement. From his base near Merced, California, he led a group of nearly 300 volunteers on actions like citizen lobbying, protesting at important court hearings, and engineering community improvement efforts like graffiti removal. Costa was initially prosecuted on the state level for his cultivation of a collective garden of nearly 900 plants. After nearly 20 court appearances, however, local authorities handed the case over to the U.S. Attorney and the prosecution began all over again on the federal level. Costa went to jury trial in November 2006 and was found guilty on charges of the manufacture of marijuana, possession with the intent to distribute, and possession of a firearm. He has been incarcerated since his federal indictment, and has a release date set for 2018.

Dustin Robert Costa 62406-097
FEDERAL PRISON CAMP
PO BOX 5000
FLORENCE, CO 81226-5000

The case of Vernon Rylee shows the cold reality that no one is too sick to be imprisoned by the federal government. A northern California medical marijuana patient and caregiver, Rylee was initially arrested in August 2003 on charges of cultivating over a thousand marijuana plants. After replanting his garden the following year, the bust repeated itself, but this time with federal agents confiscating the plants. In October 2005, the Trinity County District Attorney dismissed the state charges against Rylee and promptly handed the case over to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution. Pending trial in his federal case, Rylee was held at the Sacramento County Jail, where the wheelchair-bound inmate claims he was continually deprived of prescription medications for diabetes, blood pressure and pain from a crippling back injury. His health deteriorated so severely that he ended up being transferred to a medical facility in Texas for intensive care in early 2006, around which time he accepted a plea deal offered by the prosecution. Rylee is scheduled to be incarcerated until 2010. According to his daughter, he is unable to read or write very well, but he appreciates receiving mail and supporters are encouraged to send messages nonetheless.

Vernon Lavell Rylee 16059-097
FEDERAL PRISON CAMP

PO BOX 1000
BUTNER, NC 27509

John Sullivan was indicted in July 2006, when the Drug Enforcement Administration executed massive simultaneous raids on San Diego’s medical marijuana dispensaries. The action shut down most of the dispensaries in the region, including Sullivan’s “Purple Bud Room” and “Tender Holistics Care.” During the investigation of these facilities, which began in September 2005, an undercover officer claimed that he was able to purchase marijuana for his dog. Sullivan’s indictment contained counts for cultivation, as well as for conspiracy to cultivate and conspiracy to distribute marijuana. While also facing state charges stemming from the raids, Sullivan pled guilty in federal court to growing three hundred marijuana plants. In August 2007, he was sentenced to five years in federal prison and five years of probation. Sullivan served some of his time in Oregon, before being transferred to a federal prison in Florida. He was then released to a southern California halfway house in mid-2010.

Federal agents began investigating Sparky Rose in 2005, after the Los Angeles Police Department raided a West Hollywood medical marijuana dispensary called the “Yellow House” that he was running as part of the “Compassionate Caregivers” chain. Rose then went on to become the director of “New Remedies Cooperative” in San Francisco, which was raided by the Drug Enforcement Administration in October 2006. After searching the dispensary and various associated grow sites, agents reported seizing $125,000 in cash and thousands of marijuana plants. Calling Rose “a major statewide pot supplier,” the U.S. Attorney charged him with various counts for the manufacture and distribution of marijuana. He was also charged with money laundering, based on the government’s accusation that he laundered over $3 million from marijuana proceeds in order to supply himself with a $9600/week salary and various luxury items such as a Porsche convertible. Rose maintained that these calculations were grossly inaccurate and denied that he and his employees were profiteering from medical marijuana. However, Rose eventually accepted a plea deal and, in March 2008, was sentenced to 37 months.  He served his time in the prison camp at Lompoc, California, and was released to a Los Angeles area halfway house in August 2009. 

Larry Kristich was the president of the “Compassionate Caregivers” chain of medical marijuana dispensaries that operated an extensive number of locations across California. During its peak, the chain had outlets in West Hollywood, San Diego, Ukiah, Bakersfield, Oakland, San Francisco, and Alameda County. Federal investigators stated that “Compassionate Caregivers” employed two hundred people, grossed a total of $95 million and distributed over 15,000 pounds of marijuana during the course of its three years of operation. The West Hollywood location, called the “Yellow House,” was raided by the Los Angeles Police Department in 2005, leading to the seizure of the chain’s bank account and the closure of its facilities. Federal charges for Kristich and a handful of associates followed two years later. Kristich was in Costa Rica when he was indicted in July 2007, but he returned shortly afterward to surrender to federal authorities. In early 2008, he accepted a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to a count of maintaining a drug-involved premises and a count of promotional money laundering. In early February 2009, Kristich was sentenced to 5 years in prison and given a $500,000 fine.

LARRY ROGER KRISTICH #33309-112
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 3000
ANTHONY, TX  88021

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kenneth Affolter’s company “Beyond Bomb” supplied California’s medical marijuana dispensaries with a wide array of medicinal edibles. The marijuana-infused products, which included everything from sodas to candy bars, were labeled as parodies of mainstream snacks with names like “Rasta Reece's” and “Toka-Cola.” Trouble began in February 2006, when Oakland police officers responded to a burglar alarm at one of Affolter’s warehouses. An investigation by federal drug agents quickly followed, culminating in a raid on three locations a month later. In addition to the edible products, agents reported seizing approximately $100,000 in cash and nearly 12,000 rooted marijuana plants, as well as 17,736 unrooted marijuana clones. Eleven of Affolter’s employees were also charged in the federal case that resulted. They all accepted plea deals and received sentences that ranged from probation to 18 months in prison. Affolter pled guilty to a charge of conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana, and in March 2007 received a sentence of 70 months in prison and a $250,000 fine.