JURY IN POT CASE CONVICTS MAN, URGES 10-YEAR TERM

Howard Stern And At Least One Lawyer Urged Him To Cop A Plea. But
Lynch Didn't Want To Lose His Driver's License.

For months, Jay Lynch took his case to local media outlets, even to a
nationally syndicated radio show.

He said he was innocent of growing pot for others to smoke. He grew
and smoked it only to ease his back pain, he said.

In the end, the only audience that mattered didn't buy his arguments.

A Roanoke jury convicted Lynch on Tuesday of manufacturing marijuana
for others' use. The jury recommended that a judge sentence the
40-year-old Roanoke man to 10 years and fine him $10,000.

Circuit Judge Robert P. Doherty sent him directly to jail and set a
May 18 presentence hearing.

"Man, they hammered the old boy, didn't they?" Lynch said before the
jury recommended the sentence.

But Lynch, who represented himself in the two-day trial, may have
hammered himself in closing statements.

Describing his philosophy on drugs, he told the jury about a
girlfriend bringing a child with her to visit his house. As they
passed a joint, he grew disenchanted as he noticed the child hovering
around its mother, he told the jury.

"Don't bring a kid around medicinal marijuana," he said.

Prosecutor Wes Nance asked the jury to look at the story from another angle.

"When he says he shares marijuana with a girl who came over, he
admits to violating the law which he is charged with," Nance said.

As he awaited the verdict, Lynch admitted he shouldn't have used that story.

"I'm not a lawyer," he said.

He has said he hoped that he could counter his legal inexperience
with publicity. He used classified advertisements in
(http://www.theroanoketimes.com)The Roanoke Times, and last month, he
made a nationally broadcast call-in appearance on Howard Stern's
radio show. Stern suggested that he cop a plea.

One of his ex-lawyers, Public Defender Jay Finch, has said a plea
bargain could have gotten his client no more than six months in jail.
But Lynch said Tuesday that he couldn't endure losing his driver's
license, which he would automatically with a conviction. "That's the
main reason I'm here today," he said.

Nance entered more than 40 pieces of evidence of what he called an
"orchard" of marijuana - more than 100 plants.

Sgt. B.T. Clingenpeel, part of the September 1999 raid on Lynch's
Westside Boulevard Northwest home, testified that Lynch "talked
continuously" as police searched the home.

"He said he wasn't doing anything wrong," Clingenpeel said. "It was
just for him and his friends."

Detective K.T. Daniel testified that as police discussed the size of
the plants, one of which reached nearly 7 feet tall, Lynch said "of
course it's big. I'm not an amateur. I'm the real deal."

Lynch said he plans to appeal.