2 ACCUSED OF BREAK-IN AT POT CLUB AFTER RAID

OAKLAND -- Two men were in custody Friday on
suspicion of breaking into a downtown Oakland building hours after it
was raided by federal drug agents during a marijuana investigation,
authorities said.

Arthur Palmer, 44, and Kenneth Goss, 41, both of Oakland, broke into
3333 Telegraph Ave. about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday, police said. Officers
responding to a report of a burglary in progress caught them as they
were going out the back door, police said.

Agents with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration had left the
building about 12 hours earlier after raiding it early Wednesday, one
of 10 such operations at homes and medical-marijuana dispensaries in
San Jose, San Mateo and other cities.

No arrests have been made and the details of the case remain sealed in
U.S. District Court. But Ken Estes, 50, who manages the dispensaries,
said Friday that he and several of his managers whose homes were
raided fear they will be arrested.

Estes said agents seized 318 marijuana plants and $100,000 during the
raids - and he blames the DEA for leaving his Oakland location open to
burglars.

He said the agents apparently left some bags of marijuana behind,
which made it tempting for the suspects.

Oakland police did not say what Palmer and Goss allegedly took from
the building, and Estes isn't sure which items disappeared in the
burglary and which in the DEA raid.

The federal agents "didn't even secure it up," Estes said of the
building. "They wrapped an extension cord around the door. I'm sure
it's not the only building that's burglarized, but when people walk by
and see that the back windows have been broken open and there's just
an extension cord, I mean, there's a lot of people in that area of
Oakland who would sneak into parts of abandoned buildings."

Estes said he had not been allowed onto the property, even after the
agents left. "It has to be their fault," he said. "They take us and
throw us out. We all had to leave."

Javier Pena, special agent in charge of the DEA in San Francisco, said
of the building, "We secured it and we left the area. We took evidence
out of the building."

Palmer is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on a
parole violation as well as on suspicion of burglary. Goss is being
held in lieu of $30,000 bail on suspicion of burglary and possession
of a controlled substance.

Estes said he is upset at the DEA investigation because "I've done
nothing other than medical (marijuana). I've dedicated my life to
this. The raid itself just shows that the federal government is out of
touch with the American people. The raid was just mean-spirited."

Proposition 215, the initiative approved in 1996 by state voters,
legalized growing and using marijuana for medical purposes and with a
doctor's recommendation. Under federal law, marijuana used for any
purpose is illegal.

Pena declined to comment on the investigation. But he said, "We go
after the big clubs out there. We go after the biggest and the baddest."