Five years seems like a pretty good outcome.

from Chris Bartkowicz, Highlands Ranch marijuana grower likely to plead guilty at Thursday hearing - Denver News - The Latest Word

Update: Since the original version of this post went live at 1:15 p.m. today, I've had a chance to speak at greater length with Joseph Saint-Veltri, attorney for Highlands Ranch's Chris Bartkowicz, who faces federal marijuana cultivation charges in relation to a home grow he showed off to a 9News reporter earlier this year. He confirms a guilty plea in exchange for a stipulated sentence of sixty months, or five years.

Saint-Veltri stresses that Judge Philip Brimmer must sign off on the agreement in order for it to move forward. As for the decision to reach such a compromise with prosecutors, he says Brimmer's decision to nix a medical-marijuana defense at a September hearing made moving forward all but impossible.

"The trial would have proceeded based on the court's rulings -- as if Amendment 20 did not exist," he says, referring to the 2000 measure that legalized MMJ in Colorado. Saint-Veltri offered numerous arguments on Bartkowicz's behalf at the earlier hearing, he continues, "but every one of them was sort of connected to Amendment 20 in some way."

The result would have forced an unfortunate flashback.

"When we did these kinds of cases before Amendment 20, they looked a certain way," he notes. "And this one would have looked the same way."

Look below to read the earlier item: