LAKE COUNTY POT GROWER LEPP GUILTY

A Lake County man with a penchant for pushing the boundaries of
medical marijuana law has been convicted in federal court of growing
nearly 25,000 pot plants in plain view along Highway 20 in Upper Lake
four years ago.

Eddy Lepp, 56, was convicted Tuesday by a U.S. District Court jury of
conspiracy to possess marijuana with the intent to distribute more
than 1,000 marijuana plants and of cultivating more than 1,000
marijuana plants, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

He faces between 10 years and life in prison and a maximum fine of $4
million when he's sentenced Dec. 1, said U.S. Attorney's Office
spokesman Joshua Eaton.

Lepp said Thursday he would appeal the verdict.

"I truly feel I was very, very railroaded by the system, and
specifically by (U.S. District) Judge Marilyn Patel," he said.

Lepp said Patel, prior to trial, had refused to allow his attorneys
to defend him under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is
aimed at preventing laws that substantially burden a person's free
exercise of religion.

Lepp, who said he is Rastafarian as well as a minister of the
Universal Life Church, claimed the marijuana was grown for spiritual
and religious reasons.

But Patel said the number of plants being grown created too great a
risk that some of them were being diverted for nonreligious uses, he said.

When federal and Lake County Sheriff's officials raided the garden in
2004, they estimated there were more than 32,000 plants of varying
sizes growing in neatly tilled rows near Highway 20 next door to a
commercial strawberry patch.

Lepp and High Times magazine, a publication focused on marijuana
production and laws, said it was the largest single crop of medical
pot seized in the United States.

The subsequent legal battle earned Lepp a High Times 2004 Freedom
Fighter of the Year Award.

More-conservative medical marijuana proponents have said they're less
than thrilled by Lepp's predilection for attracting the ire of
federal authorities.

Investigators estimated Lepp's 2004 crop could have been worth more
than $80 million when mature.

Lepp said Thursday and at trial the plants weren't his. The marijuana
was being grown cooperatively by members of his church, said Lepp,
founder of Eddy's Medicinal Gardens.

"All I did was make (the land) available to the ministry," he said.

Lepp had been arrested at least twice before the 2004 raid but little
came from those brushes with the law.

He's also been a high-profile promoter of marijuana legalization. He
lobbied Lake County supervisors to set medical marijuana standards
and smoked pot openly outside the Federal Building in Santa Rosa
during a 2002 demonstration in support of medical marijuana.

Lepp said he was surprised by his conviction, which took the jury
only about three hours to reach.

"We made it very clear through the course of the trial I was doing
everything legally," he said.