Bud’s note: Today’s must-read is this fascinating story by Julia Prodis Sulek of the San Jose Mercury News. Every courtroom drama needs a twist. ============ Defense lawyers in the Los Gatos murder-for-hire trial tried to put their first chink in the prosecution’s case on Thursday when they accused District Attorney-elect Jeff Rosen of withholding information they believe could help support their theory that the killing of Mark Achilli was actually a drug-debt collection gone bad. The argument arose during what seemed like routine testimony from a Santa Clara police officer about what he found in [...]
Alameda County sheriff’s investigators are asking for the public’s help in locating two men charged with murdering a man they apparently suspected of plotting to steal their marijuana. Mohammed Kahn, 47, and Manuel Trujillo, 62, know they are being sought in the slaying of Francisco “Frankie” Lopez, 27, of East Palo Alto and should be considered armed and dangerous, said sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Dudek. Lopez disappeared Feb. 26 after he and an older brother went to a five-bedroom home filled with marijuana plants in an unincorporated area near Hayward, Henry K. Lee of the San [...]
A federal grand jury in Sacramento indicted 10 people in four separate cases of marijuana growth operations on public land, according to a Thursday news release by United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner’s office. Authorities said the defendants operated large marijuana grows in three different counties. In all, agents found more than 36,000 plants being cultivated by the defendants, Chelsea Phua reports in Sacto 9-1-1. More than 3,000 marijuana plants, each about 5 feet tall, were found on Bureau of Land Management lands south of Cache Creek in Yolo County in early August. Agents raided [...]
Our view: An empty warehouse filled with marijuana? Sounds like a nightmare Chico shouldn’t encourage. At first it sounded like a joke, the Chico Enterprise-Record opines in this editorial. Somebody wants to take a huge vacant building near the Chico Municipal Airport and fill it with 600,000 square feet of marijuana plants, an indoor grow the size of five Chico Wal-Marts. Only it wasn’t a joke. The proposal came from a serious businessman, who is kicking tires in an attempt to expand his Los Angeles-based venture, Plant Properties Management, LLC. Jason Oh, 36, learned of [...]
Sep 022010
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca on Wednesday took aim at the medical marijuana industry, citing last week’s triple murder in West Hollywood as an example of how enterprising criminals have infiltrated some of the dispensaries. Baca said the dispensaries have strayed from their original mission — to aid the seriously ill — and are now the target of criminals who see an easy way to make money and get drugs, the Los Angeles Times reports. “The medicinal marijuana program that voters authorized years ago has been hijacked by underground drug-dealing criminals who are resorting [...]
Sep 022010
A ban on marijuana dispensaries in the city of Pacific Grove was adopted 5-2 Wednesday by the City Council, the Monterey County Herald reports. The ordinance, prepared at the council’s direction by City Attorney David Laredo, prohibits “growing, selling, distributing or operating marijuana dispensaries” medical or otherwise. There are exclusions, Laredo said, for health care, residential care or hospice facilities to provide marijuana to patients who hold doctors’ prescriptions for cannabis, and residents can grow plants “in strict compliance with the (state) compassionate use act.” State law allows those with a doctor’s “marijuana card” to [...]
The suspect in the killing of one man and the wounding of another on Aug. 25 pleaded not guilty in Humboldt County Superior Court Wednesday to charges of murder, attempted murder, and cultivation and possession of marijuana for sale. The 28-year-old Eureka man, Mikal Xylon Wilde — whose first name has also been spelled by officials as Mykal — allegedly killed Mario Roberto Juarez-Madrid of Santa Rosa, Guatemala, during an argument at a marijuana grow outside Kneeland. He also allegedly shot Fernando Lopez, according to the district attorney’s complaint, the Eureka Times-Standard reports. The two [...]
Two men were booked into Tehama County Jail after allegedly attempting to load 127 pounds of pot into a truck they thought belonged to their supplier but actually belonged to two California Department of Fish and Game wardens. Wardens Scott Williams and Aaron Galwey were spotlighting for deer poachers in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest on Monday night when a group of men approached the vehicle, Alayna Shulman reports in the Redding Record Searchlight. “Things unfolded so quickly that they immediately commanded them to keep their hands within view,” said DFG spokesman Pat Foy. “They very [...]
Sep 022010
LOS ANGELES — Grammy-winning rapper T.I., who is still on probation after spending time behind bars on gun charges, was arrested along with his wife on drug charges after police smelled alleged marijuana coming from their car, authorities said. The Wednesday night arrests for possession of a controlled substance occurred in West Hollywood during a traffic stop, Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy Mark Pope told The Associated Press in this story picked up by the Sacramento Bee. “Deputies smelled a strong odor of marijuana emitting from the vehicle,” the department said. “A narcotics investigation ensued” that [...]
Border Patrol agents seized more than 185 pounds of marijuana Monday from a vehicle stopped at the Interstate 15 checkpoint south of Temecula, authorities said. Agents stopped a northbound GMC Yukon about 9 a.m. at the checkpoint and noticed a strong smell of cologne coming from the SUV, a Border Patrol news release said. The cologne raised agents’ suspicions because drug smugglers sometimes use cologne to mask the scent of illegal drugs, Sarah Burge of the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports. A Border Patrol sniffer dog “alerted” to drugs in the vehicle and agents discovered 59 packages [...]
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