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Monday, 13 August 2007 02:56 |
Before DEA Special Agent John Nolan took the witness stand, he sat in the courtroom with a female companion and watched as everyone returned from the lunch break. When Mollie Fry entered and took her seat, Nolan was watching her with interest. “She’s put on a lot of weight,” he commented glibly to his companion. The matter got little further discussion, and the pair went on to chat on other superficial topics as they waited. Neither one seemed to consider that, at the time the defendants were investigated, Fry had only recently been recovering from chemotherapy and a double mastectomy. Her increased robustness should have been no surprise, in light of those circumstances, but Nolan gave no mention of such a thought. Instead, the grown man came off sounding like a catty schoolgirl dishing out dirt on her rivals.
But Nolan was not there just to gossip and make insensitive comments. The purpose of his testimony was to describe his undercover participation in a seminar on marijuana products put on by Cool Madness, an organization associated with Dale Schafer. Although neither of the defendants attended this event, Nolan testified that their daughter Heather Schafer functioned as one of the instructors and spoke profusely about her father’s activities.
 John Nolan sketch by Peter Keyes
That was the practical concern that inspired the sudden push for the warrant, but there were other, more subtle factors contributing to the rush. The defense claims that there were political purposes to the timing, and that Schafer’s well-connected opponents were intent on derailing his campaign. In addition to this, Nolan’s testimony revealed that something specific happened during the seminar that made the matter frighteningly personal for him – for the first time in his life, he found himself under the influence of marijuana. Or so he claimed.
The seminar, which was held at the Garden Valley Grange on September 22nd, 2001, required an entry fee as well as photo ID and a doctor’s recommendation. Nolan testified that he paid $30 at the door, flashed a Costco card that bore his picture, and submitted a forged recommendation.
“What was the ailment listed on the recommendation?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Pings asked on re-direct.
“Muscle spasms,” Nolan answered.
“And in 2001, do you look the same as you do now?” Pings inquired, seeming to hint that the seminar instructors would have been fools not to guess that the robust-looking agent was a fraud.
“Yes,” Nolan answered, then quipped, “but maybe a few pounds lighter.”
Once he was successfully inside the seminar, he said, Heather Schafer moderated discussion and led the group through a series of workshops with different instructors: a tutorial on trimming buds, a demonstration on extracting oil from the plant, and, finally, a segment about how to cook with marijuana products. According to Nolan, the instructors made a tincture that they also used in making Rice Krispie treats, which were passed around to the group as free samples once they were completed.
Pings then produced Government Exhibit 200, and the witness identified the evidence as the Rice Krispie treats he obtained from the seminar that day. Nolan held up for the jury’s view a large plastic bag containing several individually-wrapped confections.
“Even after all this time, they still look like Rice Krispie treats, don’t they?” Pings mused to her witness.
“With a greenish tint, yes,” Nolan replied.
Pings then played the portion of the undercover tape where Heather Schafer made her infamous comment about the family cleaning out the house. The mention was part of a refusal of Nolan’s request for clones, which were absent from the seminar in spite of earlier undercover phone calls that had established that clones would be available for purchase at that time. In consolation, Heather instructed the agent to call and leave a voice mail message for her, so that she could arrange the provision of clones in the future. She also warned Nolan that, unless he had a doctor’s verification of his required amount, he should be careful to not grow more than six plants at a time to stay within his county’s guidelines. This was the final exchange Nolan had with the seminar instructors before leaving the event.
“And how did you feel when you left the seminar?” Pings asked.
“I believed I was under the influence of marijuana,” the agent replied, citing the cooking segment as the portion that exposed him to intoxicants. The exact mechanism of exposure, however, was still unclear.
“Did you do anything but stand there?” Pings inquired of her witness.
“No,” Nolan maintained.
“Did you partake in anything else that would have put you under the influence?” It was the prosecutor’s last question for her witness.
“No,” he answered definitively.
The agent was then turned over to the defense attorneys for cross-examination, for which Tony Serra took the lead. The charismatic lawyer paid little mind to Nolan’s claims of intoxication, leaving that subject to be further illuminated by later questioning from his colleague, Laurence Lichter. Instead, Serra focused on the details of Nolan’s infiltration of the seminar.
 Tony Serra and Laurence Lichter
Nolan revealed that he had a handgun on his person, and that it was concealed.
“Was it loaded?” came Serra’s next question.
Pings objected, but not quickly enough to prevent an answer.
“Yes,” the agent admitted.
Judge Damrell looked over at the jury and instructed them simply, “Disregard that last answer on whether it was loaded or not.”
As the cross-examination continued, Nolan revealed that he forged his recommendation by finding one that was lying around the office, then obliterating the original name and adding his own. When asked about his cover story, Nolan said that the recommendation listed muscle spasms as the ailment, so it was an easy decision to simply claim muscle spasms as his own condition.
“But you don’t have muscle spasms, do you?” Serra asked pointedly.
Nolan acknowledged that he did not.
“Creating your cover story, it’s almost like preparing for a performance, isn’t it?” The defense attorney gesticulated as he made his point.
“No,” the agent rejected the characterization.
“Except your purpose is not really to entertain, but to deceive,” Serra clarified.
Nolan finally admitted to the applicability of this analogy, and the defense attorney, satisfied, went on to question him about other details of the seminar he infiltrated.
“Didn’t Heather Schafer say, ‘Call the number and leave a message and let me know you need clones?’” Serra asked the witness, referencing the undercover audio recording.
“I believe so,” Nolan replied.
“I’m emphasizing the pronoun,” the defense attorney continued. “She said ‘me,’ not ‘my mom’ or ‘my dad’?”
The witness agreed with Serra’s assessment, and the questions continued. “Was Dale Schafer even there?” Serra asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Nolan responded.
“How many patients were there?” the defense attorney inquired. “Exclude yourself.”
Pings, reacting like a shot to the word ‘patients,’ made a swift objection. The judge, again turning to the jurors, told them to ignore the phrase. Serra, complying, amended his question. “Okay, then. Persons. Persons with recommendations. How many of those were there?”
“There were four or five others,” Nolan recalled.
“And did the recipients of the instruction manifest any illnesses, any symptoms of sickness?” the defense attorney continued.
Pings let out another objection, and the judge responded, calling Serra’s question irrelevant. The defense attorney, accepting the block, turned instead to another topic. “Was pest control addressed during the seminar?”
“Yes,” Nolan replied.
“And its devastating effects on young clones?”
“No,” the agent said. “It was just brought up as being a nuisance.”
The defense attorney gave the witness a skeptical look. “Did you take notes?”
Nolan confessed that he had not, and Serra went on to ask, “Isn’t it true that it’s hard to remember from way back then?”
“Yes,” the agent admitted.
Serra then quickly wrapped up his cross-examination and handed the floor over to an eager-looking Lichter. The questioning soon became centered around Nolan’s sense of intoxication following the distribution of Rice Krispie treats made with a marijuana tincture.
“Someone said, ‘Don’t consume these here unless you’re very comfortable,’” Nolan related to the defense attorney. “They said, ‘Just consume them at home,’ and they passed out baggies.”
“That’s a safety concern,” Lichter commented. “Did you drive?”
“Yes, to the prearranged meeting place,” Nolan admitted. “But I didn’t feel comfortable driving, so I asked another agent to drive me home.”
The defense attorney, however, was looking for other potential intoxicants. “Did you partake in any other psychoactive substances, like alcohol in the tincture or the sugar?”
Nolan seemed unaware of what the defense attorney was asking, possibly confused by the description of sugar as psychoactive. Lichter made his requests more particular. “How did you know you were under the influence?”
“I felt sort of lightheaded,” Nolan explained.
“Were you giggling?” Lichter asked.
The agent gave a simple reply, “No.”
The defense attorney continued his inquiries. “Had you ever experienced marijuana before?”
“This was my first time,” Nolan declared firmly.
Lichter probed, “Your first and only time?”
“I encountered it in other undercover operations since then,” the agent explained. “It’s similar to being drunk – it’s the same sort of feeling.”
“Have you ever been drunk?” Lichter asked.
The agent confirmed that he had been drunk, and the defense attorney went on to inquire about the seminar itself. He wanted to know whether the instructors had discussed methods of delivery other than smoking and oral ingestion. “Did you talk about topical application?”
“Yes,” Nolan said.
Lichter put forth another question. “And what would topical be good for?”
Pings objected, feeling the cross-examination moving uncomfortably close to talk about medical uses. The judge sustained her objection, and then looked up at Lichter to see if he had any further questions. The defense attorney had nearly concluded, but he had just one more matter he wanted to bring up.
Lichter turned back to the witness. “The forged notes – were they from Dr. Mikuriya?”
“Yes,” Nolan answered. “I believe so.”
“And do you know who he is?” Lichter asked.
“A doctor who writes recommendations,” came the commonsense response.
Lichter sounded surprised. “You didn’t read his obituary on the New York Times?”
Pings objected at this point, to which Lichter shrugged and said, “He just died.” The judge paid the comment no mind, sustaining the objection.
Lichter tried another tactic, asking pointedly. “Did you ever tell Dr. Mikuriya that you used his name this way?”
“No,” Nolan replied.
On the verge of another objection from Pings, the defense attorney concluded his questioning and the witness was dismissed from the stand. Nolan was not free to leave the courtroom, however, and he took a seat at the prosecution’s table instead. As it turned out, Pings had pegged him for some heavy lifting chores, and these would take up the rest of the afternoon.
 Dr. Mollie Fry and husband Dale Schafer
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Last Updated on Friday, 05 September 2008 01:40 |
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