Pubdate: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 Source: Orange County Register (CA) Section: News Page: 24 Copyright: 1999 The Orange County Register Website: http://www.ocregister.com/ Contact: Teri Sporza and John McDonald SUPPORTERS ARE GRIM AS CHAVEZ LED AWAY TO JAIL Marvin Chavez grimaced as his arms were pulled behind him. Handcuffs clicked closed around his wrists. And as bailiffs led him away to jail Friday, the last thing his army of ardent supporters saw were Chavez's hands, hanging beneath the awkward outline of his back brace. Sobbing, Andrea Nagy crumpled into the arms of a friend. "There is no justice! No good deed goes unpunished!" yelled David Zink. "Totally wrong," said Jack Shachter, grimly shaking his head. "Totally wrong." Chavez, founder of Orange County's medical marijuana co-op, was sentenced to six years in state prison for selling pot to undercover officers posing as medical patients, and for mailing pot to a cancer patient. Chavez's past had come back to haunt him, and numerous tearful appeals did not convince Judge Thomas Borris to grant Chavez probation, or to allow Chavez the shield he insists he has under Proposition 215, a ballot initiative that legalized marijuana for medical use. "It's harshly unjust," said J. David Nick, one of Chavez's attorneys, likening Chavez to Jean Valjean, the hero of Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables." "It's persecution after persecution. We will appeal." The grounds: Judge Borris did not allow Chavez to mount a defense under Prop. 215, the medical marijuana initiative approved in 1996. Chavez, who suffers from severe back pain, began crusading for Prop. 215 months before it passed. After its victory, he founded the co-op, got a business license and worked to familiarize people with the new law. But Chavez's understanding was apparently wrong. When officers posing as patients came to him for pot, complaining of pain, Chavez gave them "medicine" in exchange for "donations." That, prosecutor Carl Armbrust successfully argued to the jury, is a marijuana sale. "While a law has been passed that people in need of marijuana can possess, and use, and cultivate marijuana, there is no law that says people can sell marijuana," he said. In arguing for prison rather than probation, Armbrust brought up Chavez's arrest record, which dates back more than 20 years. In the 1970s, Chavez twice was arrested on suspicion of carrying a loaded firearm in public. In the 1980s, he was convicted of cocaine possession and sent to a drug diversion program, which he didn't complete. In the 1990s he was arrested for cocaine trafficking. Though not convicted, the arrest landed him to prison for two years based on conditions of the earlier conviction. After his arrest for selling marijuana last year, Chavez promised a judge he would stop distributing is, and was released. Shortly afterward, Chavez mailed pot to a patient in Chino. That broken promise weighed on the judge's decision. "The defendant's record does indicate a pattern of increasingly serious conduct," Borris said. "Probation is not appropriate in this case." While Armbrust said Chavez is nothing more than a sophisticated street dealer using Prop. 215 as a front, Chavez's friends say nothing could be further from the truth. "Marvin's intention was always to help people who were in pain," said his mother, Ruby Harbaugh. Confusion about how to implement Prop. 215 is still rampant in California. Many cannabis clubs have been shut down in Northern California, and many local authorities do not agree on interpretation. A local police officer who stole drugs recently received just a one-year sentence, said Julie Ireland, a former Los Angeles police officer. Chavez helped Ireland's husband and son, both terminal cancer patients. "This case should have never gone to trial," she said. - --- MAP posted-by: Patrick Henry