Pubdate: Fri, 14 Jun 2013
Source: Livingston County Daily Press & Argus (MI)
Copyright: 2013 Livingston Daily Press & Argus
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/Kk1qVKJf
Website: http://www.livingstondaily.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4265
Author: Lisa Roose-Church

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.
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MAP posted-by: Matt