Pubdate: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA) Copyright: 2010 Chico Enterprise-Record Contact: http://www.chicoer.com/feedback Website: http://www.chicoer.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861 Note: Letters from newspaper's circulation area receive publishing priority Author: Terry Vau Dell CONCOW MAN INSISTS HE AND HIS DAD WERE PART OF LAWFUL MEDICAL POT COLLECTIVE OROVILLE -- A Concow man accused of growing pot for sale with his father took the witness stand Thursday to insist they were part of a lawful 16-member medical marijuana collective. Characterizing himself as a "cannabis consultant," Michael Edmond Kelly, 29, told the Butte County Superior Court jury that he and his father, Sean Kelly, 57, helped put the organization together to help sick people get access to their medicine, not to make a profit. "This was a family collective, fathers and sons caring for one another; That's what America is all about," the defendant said. It is the second such trial for the younger Kelly, who was acquitted in 2003 by another Butte County jury on identical charges, which involved a different grow. Kelly was twice re-arrested in October 2008 and June 2009, after sheriff's officers raided two separate grow sites on property in Concow the father and son owned or rented. About 35 mature marijuana plants were seized during the first raid on Piute Drive. During the second bust, an additional 377 seedlings or clones were reportedly found both there and at a second would-be grow site owned by Michael Kelly off Jordan Hill Road. During the Kellys' two week jury trial, several members of the purported collective testified, under a grant of immunity for the defense, that they were asked by the father and son to contribute either labor or money to the effort in return for getting a share of the medical marijuana. Two people called by the prosecutor insisted they did not know how their medical marijuana prescriptions ended up among those found on the Kelly property. An Oroville woman who suffers from breast cancer told the jury Thursday that she and her partner had a friend deliver their prescriptions along with a signed "caretaker's contract" to Michael Kelly, but their car broke down before they could meet with him to discuss their specific level of involvement in the grow. One of the defense witnesses in court Thursday wore a T-shirt proclaiming: "It's all fun and games until the cops show up." Sheriff's Detective Jacob Hancock quoted Michael Kelly as saying that he planned to sell any "excess" marijuana not used by the collective to a private cannabis club. "He's a liar," the defendant retorted on the witness stand Thursday. Under questioning by his lawyer, Jodea Foster, the younger Kelly said that during the first bust the detective observed: "You have a lot of dope here, what do you plan to do with the excess? The defendant claims he angrily replied that "someone" would probably take any leftover plants to a cannabis club to reimburse the group for their expenses. But he insisted at no time was there any discussions among the collective members to sell the marijuana for profit. Michael Kelly also said he never intended for the collective to grow so large, but after it was set up, more people gave him with their medical marijuana prescriptions and asked to be able to grow pot on the Kelly's property . The younger Kelly said he had been forced to move in with his dad after a wildfire in July 2008 burned down his own home on Jordan Hill Road. He said most of the collective members took an active part as the "labor force" in cultivating the marijuana. A few provided money, soil or other services. During the police raids, officers said they found multiple medical marijuana prescriptions either posted at the two grow sites, or in folders inside the defendant's Piute Drive residence. Michael Kelly told the jury that about a dozen prescriptions, which he kept in a manila folder, belonged to people he considered to be "part of our collective," some of whom, he said, helped to create clones from the group's plants so they could grow medical marijuana on their own property. A second batch of prescriptions located in a green colored folder, Kelly testified, were from people "trying to join our collective so they could rent our land to farm on." As soon as he got out of jail after the first raid, the defendant said the members of the collective decided to go ahead with plans to replant the following spring, only to be busted again before they could get the new clones into the ground. "They stole my medicine ... I was terrorized," the younger Kelly told the jury Thursday, adding: "I still can't figure out what I did that was wrong." Assistant District Attorney Helen Harberts was unable to complete her cross-examination before Judge William Lamb recessed the trial until Monday. Earlier Thursday, the judge had to replace one male juror with an alternate after the juror stated that extending the trial beyond this week created a financial hardship for him. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D