Andre Birotte Jr., the U.S. Attorney from Los Angeles, photographed by the Sacramento Bee at a news conference Friday in which he displayed a magazine image touting the money involved in California's medical cannabis industry.
BY ED MURRIETA
Four United States Attorneys from major jurisdictions in California announced today in Sacramento that federal prosecutors will now use federal laws and asset forfeitures to target landlords and others who do business with medical cannabis dispensaries and large growing operations.
While saying that they had not yet come up with a unified strategy, US Attorneys from Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego made the federal government’s intention clear: cripple California’s medical marijuana industry, which Melinda Haag, the top federal prosecutor in San Francisco, says has been “hijacked by profiteers…using the cover to make enormous amounts of money.”
“We want to put to rest the notion that large marijuana businesses can shelter themselves under state law,” Haag said at today’s downtown Sacramento news conference, where she was joined U.S Attorneys from Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles.
As The Bee reports, Sacramento U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner announced criminal complaints, including charges against a Los Angeles attorney, Nathan V. Hoffman, whom he alleged pocketed millions of dollars in organizing growing schemes for marijuana dispensaries. Wagner said Hoffman formed a management company that brought in two prize-winning Sutter County tomato growers, Thomas Jopson, 62, and David Jopson, 60, to convert their greenhouses to cultivating thousands of marijuana plants.
Wagner also announced criminal charges against a Florida man, Keith Andrew Baia, who moved to Redding to set up a warehouse for growing marijuana, and against two Fresno County dispensary operators, Mark and Ryan Bagdasarian, whom he said were taking in $30,000 to $50,000 a day from marijuana sales and had nearly $600,000 and more than 250 pounds of pot on hand.
Wagner said U.S. Attorneys will be targeting major commercial operations in California – but said not every dispensary should expect a letter from the federal government.
“Our intention is not to prosecute everybody in the state,” he said. “Our intention is to get people’s attention in order to deter this activity.”
Instead, the Associated Press notes, federal officials are initially going after medical cannabis dispensaries that are located close to schools, parks, sports fields and other places where there are a lot of children and what Wagner termed “significant commercial operations.” He said that includes farmland where cannabis is grown.
“This is not an idle threat,” said Laura Duffy, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, at one point during her segment. “This is our commitment to our communities.”
U.S. Attorneys this week began sending letters to dispensaries and landlords, warning them of potential property seizures and federal charges.
To date, fewer than 100 letters have been sent to dispensaries, the U.S. Attorneys said. More warning letters could be sent.
In Orange County, federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against owners of strip mall that leased 11 suites to marijuana stores.
The United Food and Commercial Workers, which represent workers in the medical cannabis industry, opposes federal prosecutors efforts, which were revealed earlier this week when the U.S. Attorneys’ letters were reported in the media.
“At a time when the unemployment rate hovers around 9 percent, our economy requires bold action from our government to create good family-sustaining jobs. The steps taken by the four California U.S. Attorneys to send letters Wednesday and Thursday notifying at least 16 medical dispensaries and their landlords that they are violating federal drug laws would do just the opposite. In today’s economy, hourly wage jobs like these that pay good wages with decent benefits are vital to keeping our economy afloat and families out of poverty.”
Federal threats are not new. The Bush administration sent out more than 800 letters threatening dispensaries and other businesses with federal action.
How much of today’s federal announcement is a bluff?
As Humboldt County journalist Hank Sims notes in his coverage of today’s events, Wagner, the U.S. Attorney whose turf is the Central Valley, admitted that he has no extra resources to wage this war.
“Yet he said that it wouldn’t rob from things such as meth prosecution,” Sims writes, “and swore that he didn’t expect the new asset forfeiture regime to provide the necessary funding. You may be skeptical, but if that’s the case then it’s hard to see where a handful of federal prosecutors finds the cash to go toe-to-toe with one of California’s largest industries.”
Here’s audio of today’s press conference, recorded by Humboldt County journalist Hank Sims, who notes on Lost Coast Outpost:
“The first hour or so of the press conference. This is almost all of it; things were winding up when I jettisoned from the conference call to cede studio space. Warning: There’s a lot of extraneous audio in this post from newbies and MJ fans who couldn’t figure out how to either mute their phones or shut their mouths, as well as some choice cursing from veteran reporters angered at having to listen the theme to “Hawaii 5-0” instead of the federal prosecutors who were promising to flip the script on California’s medical marijuana regime.”
Click here for the audio of today’s U.S. Attorney’s news conference.
