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After a car accident left him with both a disabling injury and a monetary settlement, destiny seemed clear for Ricardo Montes. He wanted to start a medical marijuana dispensary in his Central California hometown, so that patients like him wouldn’t have to drive hundreds of miles just to get their medication. He followed this dream, partnering with former football buddy Luke Scarmazzo and starting the California Healthcare Collective in Modesto. But after a September 2006 law enforcement raid resulted in severe criminal charges, the two men would become the first medical marijuana dispensary operators to go to trial in federal court. After two days of deliberating, however, their jury returned guilty verdicts for cultivation, possession with the intent to distribute, and continuing criminal enterprise. That last charge, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years in prison, required both defendants to be jailed upon conviction. This remand tore Ricardo away from his four-year-old daughter on her birthday, leaving his sobbing mother to collapse in the courtroom hallway and his pregnant wife to give birth to their first baby boy without him. Sentencing is scheduled for September 15th, but defense attorney Robert Forkner hasn’t given up. He’s hard at work preparing a motion for a new trial, which may make all the difference between Ricardo living in the free world and him spending a lifetime behind bars.
Ricardo Ruiz Montes 1792601 / 0826383
Fresno County Jail
P.O. Box 872
Fresno CA 93712
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Ricardo Montes
