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Thursday, 19 February 2009 15:07 |
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 The year was 2002. The place was San Francisco, a city that publicly declared itself a "sanctuary" for medical marijuana. Patient and caregiver Stephanie Landa had moved from southern California to follow that promise of sanctuary, hoping to legally grow a collective garden of various strains of medicinal cannabis. Along with partners Tom Kikuchi and Kevin Gage, Landa claims she had secured specific approval from the San Francisco Police Department for the cultivation. According to Landa, an SFPD captain had even advised her on where to locate the grow operation -- close to police headquarters, for added safety. The advice began to look sinister when local officers raided the warehouse a few months afterwards, although the SFPD ultimately released the three partners without charges. When the trio was indicted by the U.S. Attorney just weeks later, however, the move appeared to be a matter of local law enforcement handing a case over to the federal government for prosecution. During the resulting court proceedings, a disparity in the plant count became an important determining factor. Although expert witness Chris Conrad had counted only 880 "rootballs" in the evidence, Landa and her co-defendants were charged with cultivating a total of 1245 plants. Now facing mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years each for exceeding the 1000 plant mark, the three co-defendants all accepted plea deals. Landa and Gage were sentenced to 41 months, while Kikuchi received the somewhat lighter sentence of 37 months. Both male defendants began serving their sentences right away, but Landa was permitted to delay her incarceration in order to care for the minor child she shared with Kikuchi. After a well-attended ceremony marking her surrender, Landa began serving her sentence in January 2007.
Stephanie Landa was released to a halfway house on October 13th, 2009.
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Last Updated on Saturday, 16 January 2010 01:38 |
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