Monica Valencia outside the federal court, photo by Vanessa Nelson
FRESNO, CA -- She was once labeled the “Girl Friday” of a high-profile criminal defendant, but it seems that the case against Monica Valencia has finally gotten a dose of reality.
In federal court on Monday, Valencia was sentenced to one year and one day for her involvement with a Modesto medical marijuana dispensary. The sentence included reductions granted because of her minor role in the operation of the California Healthcare Collective and her lack of prior criminal history.
“She was the significant other of the business owner,” Judge Oliver Wanger commented, looking over the sentencing memo for Valencia. While he noted that “she performed tasks to assist the business,” the judge was also quick to insist that Valencia’s role was “less active than others.”
It’s what her attorney, Roger Litman, has been trying to point out all along. “If anyone in this case is culpable,” he argued during an earlier court appearance, “in my view, my client is the least culpable of the defendants.”
Valencia was one of nine people indicted after federal agents raided the CHC in September 2006, but she was substantially different from the others charged in the case. She was not an employee of the dispensary, not a marijuana grower and not a marijuana vendor. Instead, Valencia’s charges were predominantly based on chores she did to help out her boyfriend, Luke Scarmazzo, who operated the CHC. Depositing proceeds in the dispensary’s bank account and ordering office supplies, for example, got her roped into charges for money laundering, conspiracy to distribute marijuana, and aiding and abetting.
The CHC defendants soon found themselves in a situation that’s become all too common in medical marijuana cases. They were caught in a legal conflict, stripped of the protections they thought they had and subjected to punishments they hadn’t imagined.
California legalized marijuana for medical purposes in 1996, allowing it for those with the recommendation of a licensed physician. Marijuana remained illegal under federal law, however, with the U.S. government insisting on a blanket prohibition.
State law is no defense in federal court, making the conviction of medical marijuana providers a fairly easy pursuit. In prosecuting these cases, U.S. Attorneys have become adept at increasing the seriousness and the quantity of criminal counts brought against the defendants. The CHC trial would be the first time medical marijuana defendants faced the charge of continuing criminal enterprise, a count that carried a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years upon conviction.
Those were risky terms indeed, and as the case progressed, only Scarmazzo and co-owner Ricardo Montes remained to stand trial. Like the rest of the remaining co-defendants, Valencia took a plea deal. Unlike the rest of the defendants, however, she refused to testify against Scarmazzo and Montes at trial. This decision undoubtedly put her at a disadvantage, but Valencia maintained that it was the only real choice for her – she could not go against her moral code. But since she stood alone in her refusal to testify, Valencia’s decision had little substantive impact on the case.
It was a numbers game at trial, after all, and the government rounded up plenty of less-principled witnesses to put on the stand. To convict on continuing criminal enterprise, which carries a mandatory minimum twenty year-sentence, the jury had to identify five other people who had been involved in the operation. That was all too easy for the jurors once they heard the other co-defendants testify about helping to run the dispensary. The verdicts came down amid hysterical sobbing from the defendants’ family members, while Scarmazzo and Montes were led away to Fresno County Jail to await their September 15th sentencing.
Monica Valencia photo by Vanessa Nelson
Valencia is also currently incarcerated at the county jail, where she has yo-yoed in and out during the past two years due to violations of her supervised release. As it turns out, she spent enough time on the inside that she was able to serve all but 13 days of her sentence before the term was even imposed. It was a situation that required some careful arithmetic during Monday’s hearing.
The September 2006 bust landed Valencia in jail for the first time, and even though she made bail, it came with stringent conditions that prohibited her from being in contact with Scarmazzo and required her to move in with her grandmother. Also, since federal law doesn’t allow physician-approved marijuana, random drug testing prevented her from using her preferred form of medicine. According to Valencia, she began dealing with the stress by drinking, but alcohol just presented a new set of problems. In the spring of 2007, after trying to conceal a DUI from her probation officer, she was put back into jail for seven months. She was granted release again on Halloween, but the judge ordered probation to give Valencia the strictest conditions it had ever imposed. He wasn’t kidding – in early 2008, for example, Valencia was nearly sent back to jail for getting an unapproved haircut. That violation was forgiven with just a reprimand, but Valencia didn’t get off so easy last May, when a positive test for alcohol landed her in Fresno County Jail for her current stint in the facility.
On Monday, Valencia stood in shackles and a dark green jumpsuit as the time for her three stays in jail was totaled…and came up 13 days short of what was needed for her release. Although her attorney still argued for discharge and the judge ordered an expeditious examination of her time served, Valencia was nonetheless sent back to Fresno County Jail to wait it out.
Her hearing was sandwiched between the sentencings of two other defendants from the same case: Antonio and José Malagon, two brothers who worked at the CHC and maintained a cloning operation that supplied the dispensary. Both Malagons took the stand for the government during the trial, offering extensive testimony about the dispensary and their former employers. As a result, the Malagons got 40% of the time taken off their sentences, as well as sizeable reductions for the acceptance of responsibility and the application of the safety valve. When the subtraction was over, the sentences were some of the slimmest seen in federal court.
José was given a term of three months in prison, to be served at Taft Correctional Institution and followed by four months at a community confinement center. Antonio, on the other hand, will serve a six-month sentence at Lompoc before spending five months in a community facility. The disparity between the brothers’ sentences is due to Antonio’s managerial position at the dispensary and his greater involvement in cultivating the marijuana clones. Still, it’s remarkably light punishment when compared to what’s expected for the defendants they testified against. Ricardo Montes is slated to receive a 25-year sentence, while Luke Scarmazzo will likely get a term of 30 years in prison.
The Malagon brothers are fully aware that they’re getting off easy. Antonio gave a light smile after Monday’s hearing, expressing his relief. “It’ll go by fast,” he said of his sentence.
José and Antionio Malagon are scheduled to self-surrender at their respective prisons on October 2nd, 2008.
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