Humboldt slaying suspect to stand trial in S.F.

 Law Enforcement
Mar 142012
 

Mikal Xylon Wilde sat in the federal courthouse in Eureka on Monday and pleaded not guilty to a six-count felony indictment charging him with murder and drug offenses stemming from a 2010 slaying on a Kneeland marijuana farm. Wilde, 29, stands accused of shooting and killing Mario Roberto Juarez-Madrid and seriously wounding Fernando Lopez, both of Santa Rosa, Guatemala, at the scene of his large-scale marijuana grow on Aug. 25, 2010. This will be the first Humboldt County murder to be prosecuted federally in decades, according to multiple law enforcement sources. The shootings allegedly occurred [...]

Siskiyou deputies hit growers with ‘compliance checks’

 Law Enforcement
Mar 142012
 

DUNSMUIR — Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey said he plans to meet with detectives who conducted recent medical marijuana “compliance checks” in Dunsmuir to ensure they’re relaying correct information to the public. He said the Sheriff’s Office will abide by doctor recommendations for marijuana amounts and that any misinformation put out by deputies and detectives will be corrected. Lopey stated in an interview earlier this week that cooperating with deputies doing compliance checks is completely voluntary. Earlier this month, Dunsmuir residents reported that sheriff’s deputies, in some cases accompanied by a detective, made unannounced visits [...]

State’s high court takes up confusing marijuana laws

 Courts
Mar 142012
 

When it comes to rulings on medical marijuana, California courts have a case of multiple personality disorder. A flurry of recent, conflicting decisions by state appellate courts on whether cities can ban marijuana stores or be forced to allow them is setting up a landmark review by the California Supreme Court. The state’s high court recently agreed to accept four cases involving marijuana dispensaries, Peter Hecht reports in the Sacramento Bee. Two more cases may be on the way, including the appeal of a Feb. 29 ruling in Orange County that said cities can’t ban [...]

Federal dispensary warnings hit San Bernardino County

 Law Enforcement
Mar 012012
 

U.S. attorneys sent letters Tuesday to more than 50 marijuana dispensaries in San Bernardino, Fontana, Colton and Bloomington threatening criminal or legal action in federal court if the dispensaries stay open. This is the latest stage in a statewide crackdown that began in October, said Thom Mrozek, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “We’ve gone after different geographic areas, and this enforcement action is the latest phase,” Mrozek said. The letters give the dispensaries 14 days to stop distributing marijuana, Ryan Hagen reports in the San Bernardino Sun. “This letter serves as [...]

Teacher arrested in Humboldt marijuana sweep

 Crime
Mar 012012
 

A marijuana bust Wednesday reportedly found a local elementary school teacher with almost $400,000 in cash and ties to a large-scale indoor growing operation, capping two days of marijuana-related enforcement activity. While completely unrelated, the two busts — one near Kneeland on Wednesday and the other in a remote region of Northwestern Humboldt County on Tuesday — underscore many of the issues surrounding the local marijuana industry: Copious amounts of cash, environmental risks and clandestine activities on timber lands carried out by men with guns. Wednesday, agents with the California Department of Justice — with [...]

Shasta sheriff faces claim over seized marijuana

 Courts
Feb 222012
 

A woman who owns land in the Round Mountain area has filed a claim against Shasta County alleging deputies unlawfully searched her property and destroyed hundreds of pounds of legally grown marijuana there. Filed by Santa Rosa attorney Joe Rogoway on behalf of Esmeralda Sanchez Garcia, 25, the claim is the precursor to a lawsuit, Alayna Shulman reports in the Redding Record Searchlight. It alleges agents with the Shasta County Marijuana Eradication Team searched Sanchez Garcia’s Dunn Moody Road property without a warrant and destroyed more than 800 pounds of legally grown marijuana, violating her [...]

Judge: Victim can’t seek restitution for stolen pot

 Courts
Feb 152012
 

A Healdsburg man whose marijuana was stolen in a home-invasion robbery will be allowed to seek restitution to treat post-traumatic stress disorder but not to cover his lost pot. That was Tuesday’s ruling from Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Gary Medvigy in a potentially precedent-setting case that was being watched by marijuana advocates across the state. It stemmed from the October 2009 robbery in which four men dressed as police officers barged into Michael Steffen’s West Dry Creek Road house and robbed him at gunpoint, Paul Payne reports in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Steffen, [...]

Police: Man shot in attempted Fairfield pot robbery

 Crime
Feb 112012
 

A Fairfield man was shot in the leg during what police say appears to have been an attempted robbery in south Santa Rosa late Friday. The shooting victim, Denzel Demetre Simmons, 20, said he was smoking outside a relative’s house home on Bellevue Avenue when some unknown person suddenly shot him around 11:35 p.m., police said. But 15 minutes later, when two other men said they’d been involved in a shooting after one of them had a gun put in his face, police decided they had yet to straighten out what had happened, Mary Callahan [...]

Armed robbers hit Santa Cruz dispensary

 Crime
Feb 032012
 

SANTA CRUZ – Two armed men robbed a medical marijuana dispensary just after 7 p.m. Thursday. Employees inside the dispensary on the 3100 block of Paul Sweet Road reported that two armed men burst into the business wearing clown masks and sporting guns. They got away with an unknown amount of money from the safe. No one inside the business, Creme de Canna, was reported injured, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports. Police are looking for two Latino males, ages 15 to 20, thin build. One had a single-action revolver, the other had a small Beretta, [...]

Medical cannabis robbery victim seeks restitution

 Courts
Jan 242012
 

In what may be the first case of its kind in state history, a Healdsburg man whose marijuana was stolen in a home-invasion robbery will be allowed to seek restitution from the defendants. “It certainly does represent a milestone,” said Kris Hermes, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, an Oakland advocacy group for medical marijuana users. “I appreciate the court recognizing this as a lawful substance. Victims should be compensated.” But just how much Michael Steffens’ weed is worth will be open to debate, Paul Payne reports in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. His [...]

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