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MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY OWNERS REACH PLEA DEAL; WON'T FACE ADDITIONAL CHARGES

The couple behind the now defunct Fowlerville-area medical marijuana dispensary has reached a plea deal with prosecutors.

Christie Marshall, 38, and her husband, Alan Marshall, 40, who operated Marshall Alternatives, pleaded guilty this morning in 44th Circuit Court in Howell to delivering and manufacturing marijuana.

In exchange for their plea, prosecutors agreed not to authorize additional charges stemming from two alleged delivery of marijuana incidents in December in Unadilla Township.

Marshall Alternatives medical assistant Stephanie Lynn Baxter, 31, also pleaded guilty to three counts of delivery of marijuana without enumeration, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in the county jail.

Sentencing is July 18.  Christie Marshall faces up to four years in prison, but her husband faces up to eight years because it's his second offense.

The Marshall couple and two former employees were charged for selling the drug to an undercover narcotics officer who posed as a card-carrying medical marijuana patient in February 2011 and in May 2011.

Former employee April Sundie Smith faces sentencing June 27 after earlier pleading guilty to deliver or manufacture marijuana, according to Livingston County Circuit Court records.

The cases against the four co-defendants were placed on hold in April 2012 while the state Supreme Court heard arguments on a similar case, in which the Isabella County prosecutor wanted the courts to declare a medical marijuana dispensary, Compassionate Apothecary, a nuisance and close it.

Supreme Court justices ruled this year that medical marijuana dispensaries are not permitted under Michigan's Medical Marihuana Act, which voters approved in 2008.