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Where Are They Now?
Pubdate: Thu, 22 Sep 2011
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2011 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact: http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559
Author: Meredith J. Graham
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Almost 15 Months After Raids on Medical-Marijuana Collectives, Few
Have Been Charged and More Have Suffered
More than a year ago, law-enforcement officers raided eight
medical-marijuana collectives in Butte County, and the lives of those
targeted haven't been the same since. One man nearly lost his
trucking business. Another had trouble making his house payment.
Several up and left Butte County in the dust (except for occasional
appearances in court to try to reclaim seized property).
In the meantime, prosecutors have filed criminal charges in just one
case. For everyone else caught up in the raids, it feels like being
judged and punished before being brought to the courtroom.
Richard Tognoli is a prime example. As owner of Tognoli Trucking and
Grading, he'd done pretty well for himself. Profits from when the
economy was healthy were keeping business rolling during recent hard
times. He had four trucks and several employees. Then law enforcement
raided his collective-Scripts Only Service (SOS)-and, among other
things, seized all his bank accounts, including those related to his
trucking company and his personal finances.
As of September 2010, Tognoli estimated he'd lost more than $100,000
because of the bank seizures. Now, a year later, he runs just one
truck because he wasn't able to afford fuel and payroll for the other three.
"It's like I'm back to being a one-truck owner-operator," he said
recently by phone. "It really takes a lot to build a company. It took
me years to get where I was. They crippled us."
As for SOS, Tognoli shut the doors about three months ago.
"What they did to the cannabis club, wiping out the garden and
hitting us with zoning-violation fines, there's no way a small
organization working to try to help the disabled community in Butte
County is going to be able to stick around," he said. "We were so
completely upside down it wasn't even funny. We couldn't pay the
phone bill, let alone electric bills and the rest."
Tognoli has been working all this time, having gone to court on
countless occasions to get the physical property seized in the raid
returned to him-"We got enough paperwork back so we could file
taxes," he said-and the money has been the toughest nut to crack. A
year after the raid and seizure of his bank accounts, Tognoli and his
lawyer, Robert MacKenzie, are still fighting to get it all back.
"The judge returned the money but overstepped his authority, in my
opinion, by saying that my lawyer had to keep it in his trust account
just in case there's a conviction later on," Tognoli said. So, the
$10,000-plus that could be used to keep his trucking business
thriving is instead sitting in a bank account "just in case."
MacKenzie represents several clients who are trying to get their
assets returned to them from the raids-including Tognoli and Paul
Fink, who ran Northern California Herbal Collective. Like Tognoli,
Fink also runs his own business, an adult bookstore called
PlayTime4You. And, also like Tognoli, Fink's bank accounts were
seized (in most other cases bank accounts were frozen but not
seized). He also was told he'd get his money back, but it would have
to be held in trust by his attorney.
Fink views his decision to open a medical-marijuana collective in
Butte County as one of the worst he's ever made.
"I've struggled, big time," he said during a recent interview in his
north Chico home.
The raid and seizure of his bank accounts marked the first in a
string of negative incidents for Fink, a 30-something Hispanic man.
Shortly afterward, one of his partners at the collective, Trevor
McBride, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Not long after that, a
fire ravaged PlayTime4You's Esplanade location. As if that wasn't
enough, a few months ago his other partner, William Burney, was
charged with murder in the 2008 killing of a Paradise man.
But, to date, despite being raided not once but three times, Fink
still has not been charged with a crime. In the meantime, he believes
his good name has been caked with mud. When his house was raided last
June, officers spoke about Fink to his neighbors as if he was a
convicted drug dealer.
"I've busted my ass, working two jobs most of my life. It's not like
I'm living the life-I'm scraping by just like everyone else," he
said, adding that he had trouble making his house payment after his
accounts were seized. "Right now, I'm trying to survive. I've spent
so much money on attorneys. I'm paying to prove my innocence when I
am innocent."
MacKenzie agreed. Despite having requested that assets and property
be returned to his clients-he's currently working seven cases related
to last year's raids-he doubts all of it will be returned until the
three-year statute of limitations has expired. And that's even if
charges are never filed against his clients.
"The game that's played here [on the part of the prosecutors] is,
'How much are you going to pay to get these assets backUKP'" he said.
"Just about anybody would say that drug dealers shouldn't be able to
profit from their illicit gains. Unfortunately that's created grossly
unfair and draconian exceptions to our constitutional rights [of due process]."
This past June, almost a year to the day after the raids, Butte
County Deputy District Attorney Helen Harberts filed charges against
three individuals involved with one collective, Mountainside Patients
Collective. A press release from the DA's Office promised more
charges against people involved with other collectives were
forthcoming, but none has yet been filed.
Brothers Jason and Michael Anderson face six charges each, and
Kaitlyn Sanchez faces four, related to the cultivation, possession
and sale of marijuana. A preliminary hearing has been set for Monday
(Sept. 26), the same day Jason Anderson was hoping to have surgery to
remove cancer from his ribs and spine.
"A large part of recovering from cancer is remaining positive," Jason
Anderson wrote in an email. He was feeling too ill after an August
surgery that removed one rib to meet with a reporter in person. "I
would be lying if I told you that the legal charges against me were
not weighing heavily on me and that the stress of it all was not
interfering with my ability to heal."
When doctors found on an X-ray what appeared to be a tumor in his
chest cavity, Anderson, who was already a medical-marijuana patient
and grew his own plants, decided the timing was right to start a
collective. Within two months of opening, however, his health began
to decline rapidly. When June came along, "We lost everything in the
raids and did not re-open," Anderson explained. None of their
property or assets have been returned.
Others involved in last year's raids continue to fight-Robert Galia,
who runs North Valley Holistic Health, is the only one whose doors
have remained open despite the odds-and others have thrown in the
towel. Doctor's Orders, which won last year's Best of Chico category
for Best Medical Marijuana Dispensary, shut down and left Butte
County altogether. So did some of the others.
The reality is, whether they're fighting the seizure of their
property in civil court or not, they're all sitting around waiting,
wondering if they'll be charged with criminal crimes, like those
involved with Mountainside Patients Collective.
"They'll hit rather quickly after the first preliminary hearing,
after I see how the court's going to rule," Harberts said of future
charges related to the raids.
So, this holiday season could be very bleak indeed. Or it could yield
nothing, as previous threats have been unfruitful.
"I just want all this behind me," said Fink. "I want to be able to
move on with my life."
Anderson echoed his thoughts.
"My first hope is to live. That is the reality I currently face," he
wrote. "Beyond that I hope to not go to prison for providing cannabis
medicines to qualified patients. ... I hope to continue to fight for
patient rights until we see the day when the senseless prohibition of
this plant is a distant memory and people do not have to go through
the pain and suffering I am [going through] due to insane laws and
archaic policy."
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