All this, in Southern California, where medicinal marijuana, is legal!
Well, Aaron Sandusky, was the President of a Co-Op!

It was more than, a few plant. I am not sure how many patients received their medicine from G-3; however, I met many of the patients from there, receiving their medicine for free. The warehouse for the grow, was a very large, city block, with 3 dispensaries.

A defense and then, Jury Nullification was something, he was hoping for.

I was at the arraignment; I could not hear the speech, however, I heard the judge repeat, 'you re-opened, because your lawyer told you to?' Then the judge would not let his lawyer, speak on his behalf and the 'court' appointed lawyer, did not show up.

Joe Grumbine, well, read the red...


In Long Beach Federal Court. Nine medical marijuana collectives that were raided by Long Beach Police officers in the past two years have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city. The case, which was filed in the U.S. District Courthouse in Los Angeles, alleges a total of 21 raids involving strong-arm tactics and missing or incomplete search warrants between January 2011 and December 2012.

Along with the city itself, the lawsuit, filed by attorney Matthew Pappas, also names a pair of police officers who have been at the heart of the recent controversy over the city's police on medical marijuana clubs, which involved a lottery system that allowed some locations to operate legally (in return for expensive fees) while subjecting the vast majority to frequent police harassment.


According to the lawsuit, one of the officers, Dave Strohman, led a team of cops who raided the NatureCann collective on March 21, 2012, using a battering ram to knock down the door. "The police officers entered guns drawn and ordered everyone on the ground," the lawsuit states. "They immediately arrested everyone (four volunteers) for violating LBMC Chapter 5.89," the city's ordinance banning marijuana clubs. The lawsuit adds that Strohman and his team "interrogated those arrested," then seized "all medical marijuana, cash registers, computers and patients records" and that the club was "utterly destroyed."

Elsewhere, the suit claims Strohman routinely failed to provide exculpatory evidence, such as information showing that the clubs were legal under state law, when filing search warrant affidavits.

Another cop mentioned in the lawsuit is Oscar Valenzuela, a detective whose prior claim to fame is star witness for the prosecution against Joe Byron and Joe Grumbine, both of whom have the distinction of being the only Long Beach pot purveyors who were prosecuted for doing the same thing that city-permitted clubs were going, i.e. selling pot. (The two men were convicted, but have won the right to a new trial thanks to judicial misconduct).



Valenzuela wrote the affidavit that led to the April 5, 2012 raid of the Green Earth Center collective. In writing up his argument for a search warrant, the lawsuit claims, Valenzuela stated that he had a reasonable belief that club was being used to commit a felony. However, all the facts he presented involved activities that actually amount to a misdemeanor--violating the city's ban on medical marijuana clubs.


Pappas' lawsuit seeks damages for the clubs that were raided as well as injunctive relief, which would prevent the city from engaging in similar tactics in the future. According to Pappas' spokesperson Sergio Contreras, however, only five of the plaintiffs mentioned in the lawsuit remain open.


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painretreat Reviewed by painretreat on . Obama Administration Throwing Medical Marijuana Patients Into Federal Prison Fallout from the Obama Administration's aggressive federal enforcement in medical marijuana states has reached a fever pitch this month with three people being sentenced, two others due to surrender to federal authorities to serve out sentences of up to five years in prison, and one federal trial in Montana currently scheduled for January 14th. Two of the three people being sentenced in the coming month -- Montana cultivator Chris Williams and Los Angeles-area dispensary operator Aaron Rating: 5